Flock Safety is tightening controls on its nationwide license plate reader network after mounting backlash over privacy and documented police misuse. By January 1, law enforcement customers will be required to use automated auditing, tie searches to specific case numbers, and accept a shorter seven-day default retention period. Critics, including the ACLU, argue the changes still leave too much surveillance power in police hands. The Associated Press reports: In an interview, Flock CEO Garrett Langley said many of the product changes will make what were once optional guardrails mandatory for its users to implement by Jan. 1. Among them: All law enforcement customers will have to implement an audit tool that's intended to flag abnormal search behavior. When the system detects abnormal behavior, the user would be locked out pending an internal review, the company said in a description of the changes provided ahead of Thursday's announcement.

Flock, which says its customers own the data that the cameras record, is also shortening the standard data retention window from 30 days to seven. It said it will allow data to be preserved for longer when it is evidence tied to a case number. Law enforcement users will now also be required to enter a code from their records management system tying each search to a specific case before it is run, something Langley said civil liberties advocates have long been calling for. Overrides for emergencies would be automatically flagged for review, the company said.

Customers will also be allowed to decide which offense types -- such as homicide or arson -- outside agencies can search their data for, which would allow a customer to block outside searches related to immigration enforcement, the company said. Langley said that change will give individual cities and departments control to use the system in a manner "consistent with community values." Critics say Flock's changes don't address the core problem: police can still decide for themselves when and whom to search without judicial oversight. The ACLU called the shorter data-retention period "a step in the right direction," but dismissed the other safeguards as "retreads" of inadequate protections, while Institute for Justice attorney Robert Frommer called the reforms "window dressing" from a company in "panic mode."

He argued that searches should instead be approved "by judges with real warrants."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Former Cambridge professor Jason Arday, who resigned last week amid allegations of plagiarism and questions about his academic record, has been found dead at age 41 in London. The BBC reports: Jason Arday was found "unresponsive" at an address in Battersea, south London, on Friday afternoon, emergency services said. Metropolitan Police officers were called by the London Ambulance Service. A 41-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene and his next of kin have been informed, the force said.
Arday resigned as a Cambridge professor of sociology of education last week after allegations of plagiarism and questions about some of his achievements. He had denied the claims.

In a statement, the Met Police said: "At this time his death is being treated as unexpected, but is not believed to be suspicious." The 41-year-old academic had denied any plagiarism - but admitted errors in his work - and last week said the recent furore had led to "an unrelenting level of public scrutiny and personal attack." The row first erupted after another academic -- self-defined "race realist" Nathan Cofnas, who was sacked from his Cambridge role in 2024 -- said he found numerous instances of plagiarism in Prof Arday's work and questioned some of his stated achievements.

[...] Announcing his resignation last week, Arday said the "personal cost" of the scrutiny had become "too great." He said: "While criticism is an inevitable part of academic life, what I have experienced has gone far beyond scholarly disagreement. "The relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love." He stressed that his resignation should not "be mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

R.E.M.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

For the last year and a half, DoorDash has been silent as their delivery drivers have been hunted and even killed in the streets by ICE and other federal police.Now, the company has come out in vocal support of H.R. 9720, a blatant attack on communities here in Washington DC. This legislation would strip away basic power from DC's local elected government. DoorDash is pushing for it because they don't want to pay a 20-cent fee for food access programs for low-income families. All those things are not okay with us. DC communities are calling on all allies to #DeleteDoorDash until our demands are met.

The demands: 01 Immediately withdraw your support for H.R. 9720. 02 Issue a public statement against ICE and other federal police who are hunting and killing delivery drivers. 03 State publicly that the "DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force" should end.

jovo2021 has added a photo to the pool:

The Atrium
Federation Square, Melbourne

I've been coming to this place for more than 20 years, either to take photographs or to go to the art gallery, entered on the ground floor. On this last trip, I discovered a walkway at the top of the stairs that allows you a different view of the place entirely. Just goes to show, you should always keep your eyes open.

John from Brisbane has added a photo to the pool:

North Lakes is a very large housing development on previously rural land in Moreton Bay City Council area which is the next local government area heading north from Brisbane. The massive planned community of now multiple suburbs is centred around both the lake and a large town area. There is a beautiful walk around it where birds and Eastern Water Dragons thrive. This is one quiet end.

Dit is geen invuloefening: worstel met dubbele betekenissen tot het diagram klopt

Een Precies Vier bestaat uit 16 woorden, begrippen of namen, die moeten worden verdeeld in precies vier groepen van vier. Er is telkens maar één oplossing mogelijk. Welke woorden vormen een connectie?