The surveillance & liberty brief

Crow's Nest tracks license-plate readers, facial recognition, police surveillance and the wider civil-liberties beat, town by town. One free email each weekday morning, every line linked to the reporting it came from.

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Today's issue

Germany's parliament passed a Federal…

Tuesday, September 29, 2026 · 21 stories · view as email

Top

Germany's parliament passed a Federal Police Act reform on Sept. 25 permitting real-time facial recognition; officers may enter homes to install Trojan spyware(streamlinefeed.co.ke)

Germany's parliament approved legislation granting federal police expanded surveillance powers, including automated real-time facial recognition and spyware deployment at transit hubs and border areas, according to reports from Streamline Feed and UA.NEWS.

German Parliament Approves Law Authorizing Federal Police Real-Time Facial Recognition (UA.NEWS)

Manitowoc Mayor Justin Nickels will not renew the city's Flock Safety camera contract when it expires next year; the city deactivated its cameras this month(WBAY)

A security researcher found dozens of Flock license-plate cameras streaming openly to the internet; the network stores innocent drivers' movements for 30 days(wdtv.com)

Ruling: Judge David Barlow blocked a Utah SB 73 mandate requiring adult sites to verify users on VPNs; Pornhub parent Aylo brought the Commerce Clause lawsuit(biometricupdate.com)

A Defense Manpower Data Center breach exposed unencrypted files and Social Security numbers of up to 4 million personnel between October 2025 and July 16, 2026(22 News WWLP)

Connecticut's 39-section CART Act takes effect Oct. 1 with AI disclosure rules; Public Act No. 26-64 restricts facial recognition and bans genetic data sales(ctmirror.org)

The pattern

Audits and charges in three jurisdictions revealed police officers misusing automated license-plate readers for personal tracking.

Texas judge Todd Kassaw cut bond to $250,000 for Lufkin officer Zachary Klein; an Aug. 21 indictment alleges he ran 10,000 unauthorized Flock camera searches(KLTV.com)

Audit: Texas City police audit found 58 unauthorized Flock searches out of 11,900 from January to June; Galveston County prosecutors declined to file charges(Houston Chronicle)

Indiana Gov. Mike Braun called Flock tracking a civil-liberties issue; five Indianapolis police officers face charges for allegedly tracking partners and exes(93.1FM WIBC)

Flock watch

Monterey County supervisors voted 3-2 on Sept. 22 to reject a $1.7 million Flock contract; the board ordered the sheriff to remove 63 cameras within 60 days(California City News)

Augusta County, Virginia, removes its Flock Safety surveillance cameras, according to reporting published by Staunton's local newspaper The News Leader(The News Leader | Staunton, VA)

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie cut police Flock camera data retention from one year to 30 days; outside agencies logged 1.6 million improper searches(Mission Local)

Alexandria, Virginia police will publish a map of the 61 Flock cameras by Oct. 1; criminologist Robin Engel will conduct an independent surveillance audit(ALXnow)

The Idaho Statesman reports a Boise-area town removed its automated license-plate readers(Idaho Statesman)

Surveillance & Privacy

Audit: Seattle Police Department accesses internal transportation camera feeds without a written agreement; the city agencies maintain conflicting policies(KING5.com)

FOIA: British Transport Police scanned 500,000 faces in a £320,786 facial recognition trial with no arrests; the trial was expanded to Underground stations(theguardian.com)

Police have wrongfully arrested at least 16 people following alleged facial recognition errors, a policing tech expert told Fox News Digital(foxnews.com)

Ruling: In No. 26-1049 on Sept. 25, 2026, the D.C. Circuit ruled 2-1 to uphold a federal ban on Anthropic after it barred Claude from mass domestic surveillance(The National Law Review - A Free To Use Nationwide Database of Legal Publications)

Coming Up

Tue Sep 29

DeadlineSouth Africa — Bids close for State Information Technology Agency tender to supply police facial recognition body-worn and dashboard cameras (biometricupdate.com)

Tue Sep 29

HearingChicago, IL — U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals hears oral arguments in Fourth Amendment challenge to Illinois automated license plate readers (The Madison-St. Clair Record)

Tue Sep 29

MeetingDelavan, Wisconsin — Delavan General Operations Committee holds a special meeting to discuss the future of Flock surveillance cameras (TMJ4)

Tue Sep 29

VoteTravis County, TX — Travis County Commissioners Court considers final budget adoption including a proposed $10 million Axon police surveillance technology expansion (Austin American-Statesman)

Wed Sep 30

DeadlineFlorida — Deadline for law enforcement agencies to remove Flock Safety and automated license plate readers from Florida state highway rights of way (WIOD)

Wed Sep 30

DeadlineCalifornia — Gov. Gavin Newsom faces deadline to act on passed privacy and AI legislation, including SB 690 (jdsupra.com)

Full calendar and .ics feed →

Speech & Press

Filing: CNN, MS NOW and Politico ask a D.C. judge to extend an injunction against Donald Trump's White House ban; Judge Timothy Kelly granted a 14-day order(U.S. News & World Report)

Bill: Pennsylvania Senate Judiciary Committee advanced a bill requiring state ID for sites with one-third adult content; two members voted against it on Monday(penncapital-star.com)

A Santa Fe jury found Meta willfully violated New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act 43,899,720 times; Attorney General Raúl Torrez seeks up to $219 billion in fines(independentsentinel.com)

Useful

Surveillance Self-Defense(ssd.eff.org)

EFF's guides to protecting yourself from surveillance, written for people, not engineers. Start with the one for your situation.

All the tools and guides →

Past issues

Mon, Sep 28

Texas cities deactivate 900 Flock cameras

Fri, Sep 25

India's Ministry of Home Affairs directed…

Thu, Sep 24

Massachusetts and Wisconsin fusion centers…

Wed, Sep 23

Carey bans ALPRs and facial recognition

Tue, Sep 22

Western Australia Police Force scanned…

Mon, Sep 21

Las Cruces adds Flock camera privacy rules

Fri, Sep 18

LiveView and Axon let police stream cameras

Thu, Sep 17

El Paso votes to remove Flock cameras

Wed, Sep 16

Hackers dump Flock camera data

Tue, Sep 15

Flock Safety gave feds Boston ALPR data

Each issue is the day's brief as it went to subscribers. The feed has everything we tracked that did not make the email.