Flock Around and Find Out

Flock and Naw, The Ice Biz

The black vans parked right in front of the school were a dead giveaway. You always knew when it was the one day of the week that metal detectors were being deployed at the Brooklyn high school where I taught in the 90s. If you were planning to bring a weapon into the school, the workaround was pretty simple: Just wait a few hours until the vans left. Everyone associated with the school knew that the metal detector program was ineffective. Everyone in the school knew that the metal detector program created a negative stigma and had racist under(and over)-tones. As a white teacher, I was free to bypass the metal detectors on my first day at the school, while the students (all of whom were Black or brown) always had to go through the detection process. Yet, when I returned to that high school to question students and parents for my Ed School thesis on urban school violence and the use of metal detectors, my survey showed that a huge majority of students and parents wanted the metal detection program to remain in place. People concerned about being the victim of a crime (along with those who have already had the misfortune of that experience) will generally choose flawed protection over no protection.

That’s one of the aspects that makes the public backlash against the Flock license plate readers that blanket many American cities so interesting. Yes, they add an unappealing layer of surveillance to our society at a moment when many of us trust government less than ever. But those kinds of tradeoffs are generally accepted by people concerned about having their cars stolen or suffering some other criminal act. Is Flock an exception? And if so, how bad did they have to be to become one? NYT (Gift Article): Flock Cameras Can Track Every Car in America. Police Love Them. Citizens Don’t. “A Texas officer used Flock’s cameras to track a woman across state lines who was suspected of self-administering an abortion. Officers across the country have abused their access to Flock’s cameras, including to track romantic partners, resulting in discipline and termination. Los Angeles and Dayton, Ohio, among other cities, recently suspended their contracts with Flock to prevent immigration authorities from accessing data from the cameras. Dayton resorted to covering the cameras with trash bags. In cities like Houston, Oakland, Calif., and Grand Junction, Colo., residents have taken matters into their own hands, with police reports and surveillance footage documenting Flock cameras being cut down, splattered with paint and even shot.” Will the backlash hold? I recently attended a meeting about the use of Flock in my (very liberal) town. People spent about two percent of the time talking about how bad Flock’s transgressions are, and the rest of the meeting describing the car thefts and other crimes that have happened on their blocks.

+ I have a feeling we’ll see an increase in personal technologies that enable you to avoid being detected by cameras, whether they’re hanging from telephone poles or being worn as glasses by someone in your office. TechCrunch: This ‘adversarial’ pattern can prevent surveillance cameras from detecting you. (I always thought ‘adversarial’ patterns were those that accentuated my love handles.)

+ No one has covered the Flock story in more detail than 404 Media. Here are all their recent stories on the topic.

2

Strait, Strait, Don’t Tell Me

“Lifting of the U.S. naval blockade and sanctions on Iran, the withdrawal of American forces from around the country, the payment of war reparations, the release of frozen Iranian assets, and the end of attacks on Iran’s allies in the region.” Those are some of the demands being made by Iran in exchange for opening the Strait of Hormuz (which was open before the war started). Iran Insists Strait Will Stay Closed Until U.S. Agrees to Demands. Somehow declaring victory, announcing that a deal is in place, issuing empty threats on social media, and even the liberal use of all-caps haven’t done the trick.

+ “For weeks, President Trump had been laying the groundwork to declare victory in the Iran war should Tehran fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, even floating the idea privately to senior aides that he’s willing to walk away without a nuclear deal.” Now, even that horrendous outcome appears to be in doubt. WSJ (Gift Article): Trump Thought Opening the Strait of Hormuz Was Imminent. Iran Had Other Plans.

+ The deal/victory announcements about Iran weren’t the only premature declarations. Netanyahu Rejects Trump’s Plan for Disarming Hamas.

3

European into the Wind

“American travel has transformed in recent decades. A nation of former homebodies has become one of zealous and moneyed international travelers, infiltrating every cobblestoned corner of Europe and rapidly filling lesser-known destinations. Americans took a record 24 million trips to Europe in 2025. Portugal received nearly five times the number of U.S. visitors last year as it did a decade earlier. Greece took in four times as many.” WSJ(Gift Article): The Rise of the Unstoppable American Tourist.

+ This summer, they’ve been unstoppable, and uncoolable. UK and France prepare for another heat wave as Western Europe sets new temperature record.

4

Chip Off the Old Block

“There may be no more tangible an indicator of when Americans are and are not having a good time than Reddy Ice’s sales figures.” But the ice business is about more than backyard parties. It’s involved in everything from keeping hospitals running to enabling concrete to set properly in warm weather. Texas Monthly with a very interesting look at life on the rocks. Inside the Billion-Dollar Industry That’s Keeping Your Beer Cold—and Saving Lives.

5

Extra, Extra

Columbia Quake: “Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella — who just took office on Friday — convened an emergency committee to address the damage. The Colombian government has declared a state of national disaster, and rescue soldiers are being deployed to affected areas of the country.” At least 111 are dead following a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in Colombia. Here’s the latest from CNN and The Guardian.

+ In the Red: “During the World Cup soccer final in New Jersey last month, Zach Witkoff, co-founder of President Trump’s cryptocurrency company, took in the action from a luxury suite. Joining him was a man who had made the president, and all the company’s co-founders, much richer. Two years earlier, the man, Guren ‘Bobby’ Zhou, was a failed hardwood flooring retailer in Britain who had come under investigation there for money laundering and presided over the collapse of a small crypto start-up. Then seemingly out of nowhere, he became one of the biggest buyers of tokens from Mr. Trump’s company, World Liberty Financial.” NYT (Gift Article): Trump Crypto Took $100 Million From a Businessman With Red Flags. (Headline also works this way: Businessman Invests $100 Million via Middlemen with Red Flags into a President with Red Flags in an Industry with Red Flags.)

+ Veggie Fails: We interrupt the constant flow of diarrhea stories to bring you the following. Taylor Farms issued a recall for over a dozen items, including salsa and guacamole, over Salmonella risks.

+ Truth or Glare: “DarkSky International, Environment America, the American Bird Conservancy and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility called on the FCC to overturn a decision last month authorizing Reflect Orbital to launch its Earendil-1 demonstration satellite, which will carry a 59-foot-wide mirror to reflect sunlight onto a specific spot on the planet during periods of darkness.” Environmental groups challenge FCC approval of startup’s plan to beam on-demand sunlight from space. (The last thing this administration is going to rule against is a mirror.)

+ You Are the Product: “It’s really just leveraging this incredible AI and software that Palantir has to allow us to move so much faster and to be so much smarter with the data we have today. And…take a lot of the anonymous interactions we have today and turn those into known relationships…The more known relationships we have, the more data we create, the more signals we create, the more actionable intelligence we have.” America’s largest newspaper chain, USA Today Co., partners with Palantir to analyze audience data as search traffic falls.

+ Cohnheads: “Ignore the rules, do what you want to do, don’t leave a paper trail, don’t keep a calendar, never do things in writing, and, if somebody gets onto you, rat out other people to save yourself. Delay, delay, delay, ’cause grand juries have a limited time, and you can run out the clock. And call in the news media. Make up a fantastic story ... And that’ll be the news story. It’ll put the government on the defensive.” Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark in The New Yorker: How Roy Cohn taught Donald Trump Everything.

+ Execution Style: “One of Ferney’s working mottos is, ‘Our job is to execute, not judge.’ Given that she and her business partner are routinely tasked with fulfilling the whims of those who think nothing of laying out $2.25 million for a weeklong yacht rental on the Côte d’Azur (as recently happened), this makes a kind of cockeyed sense.” She Makes the Impossible Happen for Her Ultrarich Clients.

6

Bottom of the News

“A flight from British Columbia to Toronto was canceled on Thursday after a child would not sit down and buckle a seatbelt before takeoff, the airline said.” Flight Is Canceled After a Child Refuses to Be Seated. (Bookmark this one, folks. This kid will be president someday...)

+ “It was initially feared the abandoned luggage, which was found by members of the public on Sunday afternoon at Oallen, about 60 kilometres south-east of Goulburn, contained a woman’s remains.” It turned out to be a sex doll. (A reader sent this is from Australia because it seemed like a story I’d like. There’s nothing quite like having someone on the other side of the world see a story about a dead sex doll and say, “Hey, this made me think of you...”)