Penny Dean and Your Rights

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.

In Georgia, a homeowner took action against a burglary suspect accused of multiple car break-ins. The Towns County Sheriff's Office responded to a report of vehicle break-ins at a residence on Gumlog Road. Upon arrival, they identified the suspects as Hunter Adams, 18, and Travis Foskey, 21.

In northern Massachusetts, a police officer accidentally fired their gun while responding to a report of an active shooter at a school, which turned out to be a hoax. The incident occurred when the officer was alone in a school bathroom, causing a heightened law enforcement response due to the sound of the gunshot.

A security firm called Evolv Technology, which sells AI weapons scanners to schools, is facing scrutiny after a student was stabbed with a knife that the system failed to detect. The incident occurred at Proctor High School in Utica, New York, where an 18-year-old student suffered multiple stab wounds.

After the hate crime against Christians perpetrated by a transgender shooter in Nashville in March 2023, there was the usual outcry to ban firearms.

Days after the killing spree, activists staged an insurrection at the Tennessee State Capitol calling for tougher gun laws. This despite the fact that many in favor of gun control politicized the violence and called for more of it.