"3 more metro Atlanta police officers fired, accused of misusing Flock cameras"
It seems like every time they look for abuse - half the police force gets arrested and fired.
🤔
#Flock#DeFlock#Georgia#AI#Surveillance#Tech
https://t.co/OabOKaOfG3
//The Wire//2300Z July 17, 2026//
//ROUTINE//
//BLUF: GULF WAR ESCALATES AS INFRASTRUCTURE TARGETING BEGINS. SIGNIFICANT IRANIAN RETALIATION REPORTED ON AMERICAN INSTALLATIONS. IRANIAN TARGETING OF MERCHANT SHIPPING REMAINS CONSTANT.//
-----BEGIN TEARLINE-----
-International Events-
Middle East: The war escalated again overnight, with the United States beginning the series of strikes on bridges and infrastructure targets intended to soften up areas near the coast of Iran. Several bridges were struck in the vicinity of Bandar Abbas, along with the usual nightly strikes on more military targets.
On the Iranian side, the targeting of American installations has been substantial over the past few days. In Iraq, Iranian forces successfully struck the Patriot battery in Erbil, with satellite imagery indicating burn scars in the vicinity of where one launcher was previously located. In the UAE, a series of warehouses and probable weapons storage facilities were destroyed at the Zayed Military City. In Kuwait, one of the HIMARS launcher sites on the Iraqi border was targeted, in addition to a desalination plant providing the fresh water supply for Kuwait City.
Persian Gulf: The war on the seas continued with many different strikes and incidents being reported around the region. At the northern end of the Gulf, the UKMTO reported an unidentified incident involving a merchant vessel, which was carried out by unknown parties and in the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea, several targeting efforts of merchant vessels was reported throughout the day.
-----END TEARLINE-----
Analyst Comments: Last night's targeting in Iran possibly offers up a clue as to what the military objective of this specific operation might be. The bridges that were struck by the United States are not specifically military targets, however they did offer high-speed avenues of approach to the coastline. If the IRGC ground force needed to reinforce specifically the area of the coastline to the west of Bandar Abbas, north of Qeshm Island, these would be the bridges they would need to use.
The bridges that were taken out also would be a way of isolating Bandar Abbas in terms of trade. In addition to the naval base being a military target, this is also a major civilian port city that handles the import of a lot of cargo for the nation (some reports claim up to 80% of Iran's imports arrive at this port). Under normal circumstances, taking out bridges is a tricky subject in the world of military targeting; if the bridge is predominantly used for military purposes, it's usually a valid target, but if it's predominantly a civilian bridge it's not normally legal to target. This categorization gets really blurry really quickly, but what is very clear is that targeting infrastructure like this isolates the military objective into only a few possibilities.
Either the United States is attempting to go scorched-earth on civilian infrastructure so as to make life as miserable as possible and thus attempt to turn the populace against the government...or this is pre-shaping fires for other operations that might take place in the vicinity of the coastline. Neither option makes a whole lot of tactical sense, but making sense has not been a prerequisite for any military objective sought so far during this conflict, so the continued targeting over the next few days will probably shed some light on what the objective is with this latest campaign. As of this afternoon, dozens of refueling tankers are once again making their way into the Middle East from Europe and beyond, so the war is likely to continue escalating for foreseeable future.
Analyst: S2A1
Research: https://t.co/S3Ktgax7Ng
NomadNet: 5fa68c88be727a0e1a250a75e5e79269
Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.
//END REPORT//
First of all no, we're not doing this. I do not answer DMs from a company that is trying to do damage control AFTER they have ruined the trust of Americans. I do not have "good faith" debates with people who want to enslave me in a fishbowl that they can monitor at all times.
Guess what guys: We don't actually have to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, or engage in "good faith" debates with bad actors. I don't have to justify my concerns about Flock to anyone. But since this condescension pissed me off, I will respond publicly, since Flock seems to want to keep our voices in the shadows and out of the public eye.
Note the argument:
"You see, King George specifically authorized quartering troops among you, I don't know what you're complaining about it's ALL LEGAL".
Well, golly gee guys, I guess it's all right then, they made it legal.
That's exactly the problem. Notice how nobody has a problem with standard security cameras. Public security cameras are not the problem...directly pumping the feed of every square inch of the country into a centralized federal database is one HELL of a problem and we must do everything within our rights as Americans to push back against efforts like this, if we are to have a future as a nation.
Flock, much like Palantir, took the decently good idea of improving security, and implemented it in the most cartoonishly evil way possible at nearly every single step. They are working directly for all levels of government....not the citizenry. They use subterfuge, legal technicalities, and every single trick in the book to put up hundreds of cameras every single day. They constantly mislead the public about what databases their sensors feed into, and who they sell the metadata to.
They have so little oversight that it's laughable, and ALL oversight involves the classic case of "we investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing". Flock has been caught lying MANY times, and misleading the public regarding what their cameras actually do. Newsflash...they don't just read license plates.
They are also concealing which agencies purchase their data specifically so as to avoid getting warrants, and in doing so they have turned the ENTIRE COUNTRY into an open air prison....where THEY get to provide the intelligence data to those who enforce the laws as selectively as they please.
And their defense for doing so? "Aww look at the cute puppy we rescued" or "We arrested one guy using our camera network, we're so AWESOME".
You don't get to arrest one genuine criminal, and use that as justification to set up and entire Minority Report-esque surveillance system to surveil the entire country. You don't get to betray trust, and then be sad that people don't trust you. You don't get to cozy up to the boot of tyranny so much that you become the boot yourself, and then pretend to be just "one of the guys".
We will not fall for this gaslighting, no matter how hard they try.
For some reason, many people think that private companies can't be tyrants, which could not be further from the truth. At a certain point, a private company can be so heavily embedded within government, that they might as well BE the government. Except they are worse, because we don't even have the tiniest way to hold them accountable except for taking the billion-dollar company to court.
That's my problem with Flock, Palantir, and pretty much every single other defense contractor in existence. I will NOT accept every single facet of my life being monitored, just in case a criminal commits a crime somewhere near me. I will NOT live in "ze pod", no matter which politician is in power, and I will not accept a future where people like this will dictate to me what my country should be.
//The Wire//1900Z July 14, 2026//
//ROUTINE//
//BLUF: WAR IN MIDDLE EAST REMAINS HOT WITH USA AND IRAN EXCHANGING HEAVY FIRE OVERNIGHT. NEW YORK TIMES JOURNALISTS ISSUED SUBPOENAS REGARDING THEIR REPORTING ON AIR FORCE ONE.//
-----BEGIN TEARLINE-----
-International Events-
Middle East: The war continued to escalate overnight, with the attack/counterattack cycle no longer being distinguishable, as all belligerents are now attacking constantly. At least two more ships have been struck in the Strait of Hormuz since last night, and the US has continued to fly continuous sorties to strike targets within Iran. Dozens of targets were struck overnight, with CENTCOM announcing that the sorties took 5 hours to complete throughout the region. As of this morning, nearly all of the targets that have been struck have been within a few hundred yards of the Gulf, with heavy concentrations of targets being located within Bushehr, Bandar Abbas, Chabahar, and Jask, all of which are major naval bases. Most of the Gulf islands have also been struck, with Qeshm and Kish Islands being targeted heavily this afternoon.
Conversely, Iran has conducted their own strikes in Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait. In Kuwait, Iranian forces have conducted counter-battery fire on American HIMARS missile launcher sites, with multiple ballistic missile strikes taking place at most of the US bases and missile launch sites all day.
Analyst Comment: Over the past 24 hours, the war in the Middle East has returned to the level of fighting first observed during the height of the war back in March. How long this is planned to continue is unknown, but this is not a slight increase in targeting; the war appears to be fully back on once again.
United Kingdom: This morning Counterterrorism police released more details regarding a high-profile murder case that took place last week. On Thursday, Ann Widdecombe was found murdered in her home in the town of Haytor in Devon. After her murder was discovered, local authorities immediately referred the case to counterterrorism, and one suspect has already been arrested in conjunction with this case. This suspect has been charged for the murder, and as of this morning terrorism offenses have been added to the list of charges.
Analyst Comment: This case is noteworthy as most of the information so far indicates this was a political assassination, and the speed at which authorities have immediately declared this to be a terrorism incident is very, very unusual. Widdecombe was a former Member of Parliament, and in her later years was a familiar conservative political commentator known to weigh in on political issues throughout the nation. More details may or may not come to light in due time regarding the identity of the suspect, but due to the high-profile nature of this murder, this case will be in the headlines for a while.
-HomeFront-
Washington D.C. - Yesterday a total of five New York Times reporters have been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury, to testify regarding their reporting on the alleged security breaches onboard the new Air Force One. Last week, President Trump flew to Turkey for the NATO summit on the new airframe, but during the trip, an undisclosed security issue prompted the Secret Service to switch back to the older platform.
Analyst Comment: The details of exactly what the alleged crimes are, have not been disclosed. The New York Times has a history of publishing content which could lead to security issues, but in this case nothing they wrote in their original report appears to have been classified. However, they did explicitly state that they had a source who had classified knowledge of the defenses (or rather, the alleged lack of defenses) on the new Air Force One platform, which is probably why the harsh crackdown on the New York Times. They also made the claim that the new airframe has not had enough time to install the anti-missile countermeasures of the older platform, though no detail on this was provided. Regardless, talking to journalists in any capacity about any of the protection measures used by the White House is a huge no-no, and one of the most sensitive issues that always results in a very heavy-handed response.
-----END TEARLINE-----
Analyst Comments: As the war in the Persian Gulf rages on, concerns are growing regarding the apparent widening of the war to include the Red Sea region. The mutual targeting between the Saudis and the Houthis in Yemen has continued to some degree, though it's too soon to tell if either party is committed to turning this into a more protracted fight. If that is the chosen course of action, the situation is likely to get very serious.
While the Strait of Hormuz remains a hot warzone that has restricted the flow of about 20 million barrels per day out of the region, the Saudi East-West Pipeline system has been working to reduce this deficit by pumping roughly 7 million barrels per day during most of this conflict. This has eased the burden of Hormuz being cut off, and has been one of the main factors keeping oil from reaching $200 per barrel. However, this pipeline runs from the Gulf, across the desert, before terminating in Yanbu at a major oil export terminal. This terminal....is within missile range of the Houthis. Somewhat interestingly, there are also very little air defenses in the southern regions of Saudi Arabia despite the Saudis fighting the Houthis for a couple of decades at this point; nearly all missile defenses are on the northern coastline or in the vicinity of American bases. So far during this conflict, the Iranians have successfully struck the Yanbu oil terminal using extremely long-range (and slow-flying) drones. The Houthis have a much higher chance of success in threatening Yanbu, and if they are able to strike this facility, the global oil crisis will go from worse to worst.
Analyst: S2A1
Research: https://t.co/S3Ktgax7Ng
NomadNet: 5fa68c88be727a0e1a250a75e5e79269
Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.
//END REPORT//
//The Wire//2300Z July 6, 2026//
//ROUTINE//
//BLUF: CHINA AND NORTH KOREA CONDUCT MISSILE TESTS IN PACIFIC. RUSSIA AND UKRAINE CONDUCT MAJOR TARGETING EFFORTS. INDONESIAN MILITARY RECOVERS REMAINS OF AMERICAN PILOT KILLED IN AMBUSH OVER THE WEEKEND.//
-----BEGIN TEARLINE-----
-International Events-
Far East: Multiple missile tests were reported over the weekend, with both North Korea and China conducting tests of long-range munitions. North Korea tested a total of 12x cruise missiles from the KANG KON, the Choe Hyon-class Destroyer which is the newest addition to the Korean People's Navy. In China, a submarine-launched ballistic missile test was carried out at an undisclosed location in the Pacific, marking the first test of a SLBM by China in several years.
Europe: The war in Ukraine escalated over the weekend as Russia renewed strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure. On Saturday, Ukrainian forces conducted more long-range drone attacks on Russian oil depots, most notably the Ust-Luga oil terminal in St. Petersburg. Separately, a different series of drone attacks struck various refineries in the Omsk region, deep within Russia. In response, Russia has conducted several strikes throughout Kiev, including the Vishnyovoye fuel depot on the southwestern outskirts of Kiev, which resulted in an extremely large fire. NASA's space-based fire detection sensors noted one very large fire at this fuel depot, along with a few smaller fires throughout the city that are anomalies from normal heat signatures in the region. In addition to the fuel depot, an ammo dump was co-located with this facility, which was used to store American tank rounds which contained depleted uranium penetrators, along with components for the production of cluster munitions which also contained depleted uranium.
Analyst Comment: Depleted uranium tank rounds are about 40% less radioactive than raw uranium that is mined out of the ground, so the radiological nature of this ammunition is not normally a concern. However, this risk changes substantially if it's on fire as the smoke produced by burning uranium does indeed present a radiological hazard, thus the evacuations. This ammunition storage area was located in a densely populated residential area, with the resulting fires prompting the evacuation of roughly 600x residents.
Indonesia: Over the weekend, Indonesian troops conducted an operation to recover the remains of an American civilian pilot who was killed by armed rebels in a remote town high in the mountains southeast of Wamena on the island of West Papua. Nicholas F. Goselin was a bush pilot flying supplies and materiel into Balinggama Airstrip when he was ambushed last Thursday. The attack was carried out by the West Papua Liberation Army (TPNPB), a separatist movement that has been seeking independence from Indonesia for a few decades. The rebels allowed Goselin to land, before murdering him on the airstrip and burning his aircraft. At the time of the ambush, a total of 7x passengers (local Indonesian villagers) were allegedly onboard the aircraft and their status is unknown.
-----END TEARLINE-----
Analyst Comments: According to the armed rebels in Indonesia, the reason for the murder is due to Goselin allegedly shuttling Indonesian special forces into the region to fight the rebels. An American bush pilot landing at sketchy airstrips, alone, in the middle of a war-torn region high in the mountains is not a particularly safe career choice, and it's not clear as to what prompted the rebels to conduct this attack. The rebel group has claimed that they warned the aircraft not to land, but the airline that Goselin was flying for (PT AMA) made no mention of acknowledging any no-fly zones declared by armed groups.
In any case, due to the death of an American, the Indonesian military is likely to crack down hard on this region over the next few weeks, in order to prevent rebel groups from capitalizing on their power-projection operations. Back in April, the United States signed a non-binding "defensive cooperation partnership" with Indonesia as Washington sought to increase relations by way of undermining Chinese expansion in the region.
On April 13th of this year, one day before the defense pact was signed, Indonesian media reported that their nation was discussing (or had already agreed to) allowing American military access to their airspace.
Analyst: S2A1
Research: https://t.co/S3Ktgax7Ng
Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report.
//END REPORT//
I have been working on a preliminary damage survey of some of the hardest-hit areas in Venezuela, which can be found on my ArcGIS maps (linked below) and also as raw KMZs for any disaster teams heading down there.
This isn't a proper survey, but it's as close as I can get using aerial footage and satellite imagery so far. Should be a rough approximation of the situation on the ground.
@RupertLowe10 The global West needs to handle this problem in such a manner that people will speak about it in hushed tones for a thousand years.
Generational deterrence is rapidly becoming the only hope for effectively handling this issue.
All of these red diamonds on my maps are IPAS migration centers, where illegal immigrants are given housing by the Irish government, in addition to be supported financially by a variety of NGOs.