Flock -- an automatic license-plate-reading service -- is adding tons of data sources ... ... so police could, upon scanning your license, get linked to tons more info about your life, relationships, etc where did Flock get these additional sources of info? they're using standard people-lookup tools and data brokers, but also ... ... info from *data breaches* so great @404 Media has the story:

404 Media

License Plate Reader Company Flock Is Building a Massive People Lookup Tool, Leak Shows

Flock, which has license plate readers (LPRs) all around the country, wants police to be able to “jump from LPR to person,” according to leaked...

unpaywalled version: https://archive.is/GmuUk

USDA says it'll restore climate info to its web site after farmers and environmental groups sued

Knight First Amendment Institute

USDA Reverses Course, Commits to Restore Purged Climate Webpages in Response to Farmers’ Lawsuit

I'll believe it when I see the pages restored, but provisionally this is good news climate data gathered by federal agencies is crucial for farmers, insurers, airlines ... pretty much any industry that has to deal with the weather #climate

Kseniia Petrova is the Russian scientist who came to the US in 2023 to study biology ... ... and three months ago was detained by ICE after failing to delcare some frog biological samples she took from France into the US (an infraction that normally has a fine of $50 to $500) She's still in ICE detention she wrote a fantastic op-ed that focuses on her science -- a remarkable new form of imaging with huge promise for mitigating disease Gift link:

Opinion | I Came to Study Aging. Now I’m Trapped in ICE Detention.

I was detained at Logan airport after I did not complete a customs declaration for frog embryos.

New coinage just dropped, folks "enshittogenic" as in ... ... when the ecology of the online world loses crucial stabilizers, such that enshittification has not yet happened, but the conditions are ripe for it @Cory Doctorow on his new podcast series "Who Broke the Internet?"

Pluralistic: Who broke the internet? (08 May 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

This is an op-ed by a professor at West Point, describing the Trump/Hegseth crackdown on any sort of instruction that questions power ... gift link:

Opinion | West Point Is Supposed to Educate, Not Indoctrinate

The academy has changed.

I highlighted this part here -- they just completely disbanded the sociology major sociology and anthropology are really, really hated by Trump and his fellow travellers they hate anything that seeks to examine the fabric of society

China is sharing its rare moon rocks -- collected from the far side of the moon and returned to earth -- with scientific agencies from six different countries, including the US the rocks are "a shared treasure for all humanity", as China's space-agency chief said gotta say, it's always cool to see scientists collaborating around the world and across borders

China shares rare moon rocks with US despite trade tensions

Two US institutions have been granted access to samples collected by the Chang'e-5 mission in 2020.

"Conservatives *hate* complexity" a superb post by @Cory Doctorow that distills a core aspect of why right-wing ideas about how to manage things like the economy, immigration and our personal lives collide so rapidly with reality key passage here, but do read the whole thing

Pluralistic: Every complex ecosystem has parasites (24 Apr 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

US border officials are so twitchy and paranoid that they detained and imprisoned two German teenagers ... ... even though they'd applied for -- and received -- their electronic approval for a five-week visit Why were they detained? Because they hadn't booked accommodations for their full five weeks they'd figured they'd travel around a bit and make decisions on the fly ... *like tourists do all the time, in most normal and free countries*

The Independent

Teenage German tourists deported from Hawaii over ‘suspicious’ hotel booking

‘We had already noticed a little bit of what was going on in the U.S. But at the time, we didn

A good piece about the value of hobbies ... ... for linking together people from disparate backgrounds and walks of life I've long noticed this about online interactions -- every time I'm in a hobby-focused forum (guitar pedals, origami, knitting, etc), it's very background-diverse and also -- usually -- exceptionally civil ... ... because everyone has at least one major thing in common The essay:

The Atlantic

What We Lose When We’re Priced Out of Our Hobbies

For a lot of people, it’s getting too expensive to knit or fish.

Unpaywalled: https://archive.is/4OxlC