If one lawmaker has his way, new rules are coming that will change the way Flock Safety and other automated license plate reader companies will run their companies.

With data and accountability at the forefront, tech companies could face much stricter parameters on what they can do with their recordings.

‘A nightmare for individual liberties.’

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley says he is set to introduce the Stop Flock Abuse Act, and while the proposed legislation mentions Flock Safety by name, it would apply to other AI-powered surveillance agencies as well.

Hawley put forth seven key pillars that such companies will be directed to follow should his act become law.

This included restrictions on data, like a requirement to delete driver information after 10 days, except for active criminal investigations. The data must be encrypted, never leave the United States, and cannot be sold or shared with nongovernment third parties.

ALPR networks would not be allowed to use facial recognition with their technology either.

Furthermore, agencies would be required to log who has conducted a search, the reason for it, who approved it, and what exactly was viewed. The logs must be routinely audited.

The goal is to prevent search abuse and require a paper trail for every search that is conducted.

“AI-powered cameras produced by Flock and its competitors are tracking and creating digital footprints of everyday Americans — a nightmare for individual liberties unless Congress enacts meaningful rules and accountability,” Hawley said at the press release.

“That’s why I’m introducing the Stop Flock Abuse Act to establish basic safeguards for AI-powered cameras and protect Americans’ fundamental constitutional rights. Law-abiding Americans should not be treated like criminals.”

Weeks earlier though, Flock chief legal officer Dan Haley ensured the senator that the company respects and protects civil liberties.

RELATED: Flock offers to pay employees to leave — and the backlash gets hotter

“Flock is a safety technology platform that helps communities take a proactive approach to public safety and crime prevention, while respecting and protecting core civil liberties,” Haley wrote in a letter. “We are proud that our hardware and software suite supports cities, law enforcement, businesses, schools, and neighborhoods with tools for public safety and investigations.”

Haley added that the company sees a positive impact on public safety “every single day,” including in Hawley’s state of Missouri.

However, Flock expressed that it welcomed “clear, sensible legislation” that would apply to all vendors and not depend on the good judgment of just one.

Flock also said it was committed to strengthening its ability to detect misuse of its technology, but admitted in the letter that it does not keep track of instances of misuse.

When asked to provide the confirmed instances of misuse of Flock systems, the company wrote that the underlying search records “are owned and controlled by each customer agency.”

“Flock does not maintain a single consolidated count of confirmed customer misuse,” the answer added.

RELATED: Welcome to the new traffic stop, where it’s your word against AI’s

In terms of data retention, Flock said it had recently lowered its recommended retention period from 30 to seven days for new law-enforcement customers. However, this is just a suggestion as customers own and control the data the cameras capture; a customer can retain data in Flock’s system for a maximum of one year.

For its search function, Flock revealed that until December 2025, there were no standardized reasons a user had to enter for a search, leaving it as a free-text field, which, “in some cases, resulted in non-specific documentation.”

Vandals recently got a hold of a Flock camera and described it as having the processing of a “midrange smartphone” with around 20 built-in apps for motion detection, taking pictures, uploading data, and receiving updates.

The cameras had limited space and struggled with storage, but no facial recognition software was found.

According to ALPR tracking website DeFlock, Flock Safety operates 81% of the active 142,000+ surveillance cameras in the United States.

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​Flock safety, Josh hawley, Tech, Privacy, Security 

Over the years, Meta became an open-weight AI giant on the back of Llama, its large language model that powers Meta AI in Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook. Now, the company is throwing it all away in favor of a new closed-source solutions. This time, it is tapping into nostalgia to win the hearts and minds of users with an upcoming agentic device that looks a lot like the Tamagotchi of yore.

When talking about frontier AI models, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok take up most of the air in the room. However, on the open-weight side, Meta’s Llama is quite popular, with 2.4 billion downloads as of early 2026. Despite its notable lead in a category increasingly flooded by Chinese competitors, Meta is opting to throw out its progress in favor of a new AI platform called Muse Spark.

You’re essentially using someone else’s computer to carry out tasks and store your data.

Introduced earlier this year, Muse Spark is a multimodal system aimed at achieving “personal superintelligence.” Meta calls it a “ground-up overhaul of our AI efforts,” claiming that it is on par with the latest Llama 4 Maverick model while using far less compute. In other words, it’s equally powerful, yet more efficient.

Muse Spark isn’t the story, though. It’s merely the backbone to Meta’s new service, unveiled in early September. The company’s first consumer-facing AI agent, simply called Muse, is designed to carry out tasks on behalf of the next billion users. It runs inside Muse Secure VM, a virtual machine that contains Muse itself and a user’s personal data.

This way, Muse never takes full control of the user’s main device. Instead, it operates within a dedicated silo to complete assigned tasks, like browsing the web, filling out forms, and even shopping online. The virtual machine also lets Muse work, even if you close the app or shut off your device.

For the security-conscious, Muse Secure VM runs entirely on Meta’s cloud servers. That means you are essentially using someone else’s computer to carry out tasks and store your data. Furthermore, interactions are unencrypted, so Meta can technically peek at your conversations, both for safety evaluations and AI training purposes. This will change later this year, when Meta introduces Muse Confidential VM as another virtual machine option with full encryption, but for now, your conversations are accessible.

On the bright side, Meta claims that it won’t share your data strictly with its ad team, and all passwords, payment info, and other personal data are saved inside a secure storage system that Muse can’t see itself.

RELATED: Meta’s Ray-Bans allegedly record your private moments — as contractors watch it all

Joel Carillet/Getty Images

Right now, Muse lives within an app on iPhone and Android. You can also find it on the web at muse.ai. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is betting that you’ll want a dedicated device instead. On stage at Meta Connect, he unveiled Muse Charm, a handheld gadget with Muse contained inside. At first glance, it looks like a Tamagotchi pet from the late 1990s. Look closer, and you’ll find Muse’s customizable mascot, Jollybot, on the display. You can give it a name, swap out its outfits, and change its voice.

The device is designed to clip on a keychain and go wherever you go so that it’s always accessible. Place your finger on the fingerprint sensor on the side to summon Muse, and put it to work. Zuckerberg noted that Muse Charm is one of the easiest ways to access the agent, as if pulling out a phone and opening the Muse app is an arduous task in comparison.

Muse Charm devices are expected to launch in December this year. That said, Meta has a steep road ahead. So far, dedicated AI devices like the Humane AI Pin and Rabbit R1 have flopped spectacularly. Consumers don’t want separate AI-powered hardware when their existing smartphones already do the same things without extra money or hassle.

Muse Charm actually competes in that sense with the Muse app, already widely available and growing fast, with 5 million downloads so far. Users don’t need this device, but Meta is betting millions will want to buy it anyway.

Then there are the privacy concerns, recently aroused by data-grabbing and mass-surveillance implications of the company’s Ray-Ban glasses. Meta hasn’t locked in consumer trust when it comes to devices, and Muse represents a substantial expansion of its powers.

Blaze News contacted Meta to address several privacy concerns, particularly around Muse’s lack of encryption and whether or not Muse Confidential VM will be a freely accessible solution in the future. A spokesperson responded by pointing us toward a quote on Meta’s developer blog:

Today’s Muse architecture isolates each user’s data from each other and keeps it secure. It restricts access to your data by Meta personnel through operational policies. It does not prevent Meta from accessing data when necessary to support, secure, or operate the service.

That last line confirms our suspicions — Meta can access Muse data if it deems necessary, with necessity open to interpretation. As for Confidential VM, they have no further details to share at this time, but if you are interested in using Meta Muse, your data will be most secure if you wait for the fully encrypted version later this year.

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​Chatgpt, Claude, Encryption, Gemini, Grok, Mark zuckerberg, Meta, Privacy concerns, Tech 

Seattle’s City Council voted 7-2 on September 22 to prohibit certain grocery pricing practices that use personal information to decide what customers pay. Consumer Reports supported the measure and helped the mayor’s office develop it.

The concept of “surveillance pricing” is straightforward. A company finds out about you, uses that information in a price-setting system, and adjusts the prices you see. In January 2025, the Federal Trade Commission revealed the existence of methods capable of accessing information from browsing history, exact location, and even the way the user’s mouse moves or items in the user’s online cart.

Shopping surveillance isn’t new.

Imagine doing some last-minute dinner shopping while a system tries to estimate how much extra you’ll tolerate paying because it’s close to dinner time. Or the system estimating your income and deciding that you can afford to pay more for groceries. The concern is that grocery stores would follow the “surge pricing” trend established by ride-sharing apps like Uber, where your cost to get around town is completely unpredictable, based on the time of day, driver availability, traffic, and other factors.

Same groceries, different prices

According to an investigation conducted by Consumer Reports, Groundwork Collaborative, and More Perfect Union in December 2025, it was determined that consumers ordering through the app Instacart encounter different prices for the same item from the same store. Nearly three out of every four products observed had different prices, with the biggest price discrepancy being around 23%.

In one Seattle Safeway test, the same basket ranged from $114.34 to $123.93. That’s a $9.59 difference for the same food. The volunteers recorded prices without buying the groceries.

The researchers estimated that the average price variations could translate into an annual swing of about $1,200 for a household of four, using Instacart’s grocery spending estimate. Note that estimate is extrapolated from the observed price variations; the researchers didn’t follow families for a year and document $1,200 in additional spending.

Instacart said it randomly assigned customers to pricing tests and didn’t use personal or demographic data for those experiments. The researchers’ published methodology found no statistically meaningful relationship between the shopper characteristics they examined and the prices offered.

RELATED: Our military turns off this invasive smartphone feature. So should you.

O Thx4Stock/Getty images

On December 22, 2025, Instacart announced that it was ending all item price tests on its platform. It maintained that the tests hadn’t used personal data or individual shopping behavior. The company said it would continue offering promotions and discounts.

Your loyalty card has a file on you

Shopping surveillance isn’t new. Grocery chains have long offered loyalty cards to customers, which exchange discounts for detailed shopper profiles. In a May 2025 investigation of Kroger’s shopper data, Consumer Reports obtained a 62-page profile for Oregon customer Hazem Salem after he requested his information under state privacy law. The file incorrectly identified his gender and underestimated his income. It also got his household size and education wrong.

Despite all the surveillance, Kroger couldn’t get the basics right.

Kroger told Consumer Reports that it didn’t personalize underlying product prices. It did personalize discounts, primarily using customers’ prior purchases and interactions with the company. Kroger also acknowledged that demographic or online behavioral data could help filter the audiences for those offers.

Seattle’s rules deserve scrutiny, too

The bill approved by the council, C.B. 121267, covers large grocery businesses, qualifying stores that sell groceries alongside other merchandise, and qualifying delivery services. It also includes random price variations in its definition of prohibited pricing discrimination. Its main pricing provisions are scheduled to take effect September 1, 2027.

The bill preserves discounts available to all members of a retailer’s Seattle loyalty program. It also allows certain discounts for groups based on prior purchases, provided they don’t rely on individualized prices, inferences about consumers, or additional personal data. Qualifying senior and military discounts remain permissible.

That doesn’t settle the question of what retailers will actually offer.

Councilmember Maritza Rivera, who voted against the measure, warned that its scope could jeopardize loyalty programs and make groceries more expensive. A policy sold as consumer protection ought to face scrutiny if it leaves shoppers with fewer useful discounts.

The bill requests annual reporting on grocery prices, comparisons with neighboring cities, and the availability of loyalty programs.

I want businesses competing for my grocery money. Offer a better price. Explain the terms of a discount so I can decide whether it’s worth signing up, but if the deal requires a secret assessment of my income or browsing habits, you’ve lost me. Feeding a family shouldn’t require agreeing to be profiled.

What do you think? Is Seattle taking a sensible pro-consumer measure, or is it another example of government overreach?

​Surveillance, Tech 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection told Blaze News exclusively that a 35-year-old woman from Mexico was caught smuggling cocaine into the U.S. Tuesday.

The discovery was made after a CBP officer referred the woman driving a 2017 Nissan Rogue for secondary inspection on the Juarez-Lincoln Bridge in Laredo, Texas.

The driver and the passenger were both arrested, and the narcotics and vehicle were seized by CBP.

The woman was accompanied by a 30-year-old male U.S. citizen passenger in the vehicle.

Officers utilized a canine as well as a non-intrusive inspection system to discover a total of 18 packages secreted inside the Rogue.

The packages allegedly contained more than 47 pounds of cocaine. CBP officials estimated the street value of the narcotics to be about $628,458.

The driver and the passenger were both arrested, and the narcotics and vehicle were seized by CBP.

“This seizure demonstrates the dedication and vigilance of our officers at the Laredo Port of Entry,” said Albert Flores, the port director of the Laredo Port of Entry, to Blaze News.

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection remains committed to safeguarding our communities by preventing dangerous narcotics from entering the country,” he added.

Special agents of Homeland Security Investigations are investigating the seizure.

RELATED: 6 people found dead in boxcar in Texas border town, police say

“Under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin,” CBP said, “the dedicated men and women of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, alongside our law enforcement partners, have arrested and removed thousands of criminal aliens from the country — including gang members, rapists, kidnappers, and drug traffickers — to make our communities safer.”

More than $350 billion worth of international trade flows through the Laredo port of entry, according to 2025 records. Nearly 40% of the trade between the U.S. and Mexico goes through that port.

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​Border patrol, Drug traffickers, Mexico, International trade, Customs and border protection, Politics 

Candy Thompson came of age during the cultural revolution of the 1960s, when young women were told that liberation meant rejecting traditional womanhood and breaking free from the home.

She believed it.

But the freedom she was promised led her down a painful path marked by abuse, multiple abortions, spiritual confusion, and profound regret.

“The first abortion was after we had our son,” she says, telling Stuckey that her husband was not only not a Christian, but he was abusive.

“And we already had a son, and we were happy with him, and I thought well, this will be good, we’ll have our second child, maybe a girl, and I really wanted a girl,” she explains, though when she told her husband that she was pregnant, an argument erupted.

“The argument led to, you know, some words, and then he lost his temper and kicked me. He kicked me in the stomach,” she says.

While the abuse didn’t lead to the loss of her child, she was then “coerced into that abortion by feeling that [she] was trapped, that [she] had no other choice.”

She recalls the “dead feeling” that follows an abortion “and the horrible regret.”

“They’re having a regret, right afterwards, even though it looked like this was the best solution, you know, and instead they have the greatest regret of their lives a lot of times and just, you know, suffer for years and years,” she says.

Candy then got pregnant again and was made to get another abortion.

This is when she began “searching in other things to find answers.”

“Instead of the Bible and going to God like I wish I had, of course, I went to the feminine mystique at that time, and it just really, what it did is it just validated what I had been thinking, that I was a slave in the home there,” she tells Stuckey.

“I even went into the occult and read some occultic books at that time,” she continues, explaining that she was trying to “find the spiritual reason” behind everything that had happened to her and used the idea of reincarnation to “convince [herself] that [her] child wasn’t gone and [her] children weren’t gone.”

“We know in our spirit, we know in our hearts that they really were, they really are real. They’re our children,” she adds.

When she got pregnant a third time, this time she refused to have an abortion.

“I was determined that I was not going to be that slave anymore, that person anymore,” she tells Stuckey.

“We had the baby girl. She was beautiful. And I had always wanted to have a girl too,” she says.

However, after the birth of her second living child, she was placed in the psychiatric ward and had another abortion before finally divorcing her husband.

That’s when she began to go to church and met her second husband.

“I knew God had put us together,” she says, explaining that while her second husband was unhappy with her previous abortions, she was able to surrender her past to him and really start her relationship with Christ.

“My heart wanted to be back with God, and that marked the beginning of a long journey, of a lot of things, that God had to continue bringing me into more light,” she adds.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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​Feminism, Occult, Jesus, Allie beth stuckey, Candy thompson, Abortion, Blazetv show