Penny Dean and Your Rights

According to the police, a man in Washington state turned himself in after accidentally firing a gun he was carrying at a restaurant, resulting in injuries to two individuals. The incident occurred on Friday evening at Sages Restaurant on NE 83rd Street in Redmond.

Authorities responded to a shooting report at the restaurant just before 8 p.m. It was determined that a male customer entered the establishment with a legally carried firearm, which discharged and ricocheted off the floor.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently filed a formal privacy complaint against DNA testing company 1Health.io (formerly known as Vitagene), accusing it of misleading customers about data deletion and mishandling sensitive genetic and health information. The allegations mark the first such complaint against a company in this field.

In an unprecedented move, armed agents from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) conducted a raid on a gun store in Great Falls, Montana. The agents seized all Form 4473s, which are documents containing buyer's information during firearms transactions. The store owner, Tom Van Hoose, claims to have been under constant surveillance by state and federal agencies for over two years. Van Hoose believes the raid was politically motivated and expresses concerns about the Biden administration's stance on gun control. Congressman Matt Rosendale has voiced his outrage over the incident, calling it an example of federal agencies being weaponized for harassment. The IRS confirmed their presence but did not provide further details, while the ATF deferred questions to the IRS.

A recently declassified report by the United States Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) exposes the government's extensive gathering of "sensitive and intimate information" on its own citizens. The report, prepared by a panel of experts, highlights the concerning size and scope of the government's efforts, painting a troubling picture for privacy advocates. The report asserts that intelligence agencies are acquiring information about Americans in violation of established laws and judicial rulings.

A Microsoft site reliability engineer had his Amazon account suspended for a week after an Amazon delivery driver misinterpreted an automated doorbell message as racist abuse. Brandon Jackson, who is Black, says he was able to regain access to his account after providing Amazon with evidence that he had not made any racist remarks. However, he is critical of Amazon's handling of the incident, saying that the company should have done more to investigate the matter before suspending his account.

For years, PPSA has warned about the vast amounts of sensitive personal information about our private lives that are scraped from our apps and sold by third-party data brokers to government intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Now we have telling details from the inside.

This article from Wired reveals the troubling use of the anti-pornography app Covenant Eyes by the probation department in Indiana's Monroe County. The app, intended for parental and religious use, has been employed to monitor the devices of individuals awaiting trial or on parole. The article highlights a specific case in which Hannah's husband was arrested and his family's devices were subjected to constant surveillance, affecting their daily lives.

Groups in the "Live Free or Die State" (New Hampshire) have sponsored an event called "guns to gardens", which allows gun owners to give up their firearms as part of a process of ensuring that those arms will never be used as weapons again. Mark Smith discusses the story and talks about some interesting history concerning notions of giving up ones firearms for allegedly more productive tools.