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  • Letters to the Editor | Aug. 14, 2026

    Letters to the Editor | Aug. 14, 2026

    Plutocracy

    Two hundred and fifty years ago, our city’s favorite son, Ben Franklin, warned us that our country is a “republic, if you can keep it.” Sadly, it appears we are failing to heed his wise counsel. We are evolving into a plutocracy, defined as “a state or society governed by the wealthy.” Dark money has flooded and controlled the electoral process. A substantial majority of Americans want universal background checks for gun buyers after numerous mass shootings, yet all such reform efforts fail. A majority of Americans want a woman to have the right to have a choice in health matters, yet the U.S. Supreme Court says otherwise, and several states are criminalizing such conduct. A majority of us believe global warming is real as enhanced natural disasters continue unabated, yet governments ignore it and continue to denigrate the environment. A majority of Americans support scientific research and adequate funding for the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, yet funds are being cut, scientists laid off, and Anthony Fauci was threatened with jail time. With unlimited campaign funds and sophisticated marketing injected into our political process, a simple majority no longer rules. We are slipping into a plutocracy in which tech billionaires, Elon Musk, Big Pharma, Big Oil, and other financial powerhouses are in control. Fortunately, the forthcoming midterm elections give us perhaps a last opportunity to live up to Franklin’s ideals. Let’s restore checks and balances come Nov. 3.

    Angus Love, Narberth, anguslove76@gmail.com

    Willful ignorance

    I’m fascinated by the fact, as reported recently, that Donald Trump is angry at Pete Hegseth for keeping him “in the dark” about the dearth of munitions available to our military, which might hamper Trump’s ability to continue bombing Iran. I’m a retired teacher, and I knew about this “munitions problem” a long time ago. How can this be explained? Am I really intelligent? A genius? Or is the president of this country willfully ignorant? Or is he kept in a bubble? It reminds me of the time — a few days before Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans — when I turned to my wife and said something to the effect of: “My God, this storm could literally obliterate New Orleans from the earth. The city is literally under sea level and this is a Category 5 storm!” and then hearing President George W. Bush, after the destruction, telling us that no one could have predicted the damage. Really? Do Republican presidents always have to be so dangerously obtuse? Do Republicans only vote for their own little “bubble boys?”

    John McLaughlin, Philadelphia

    Not to be outdone

    Remember how we felt pre-COVID-19 when Phillies rightfielder Bryce Harper signed a 13-year, $330 million no-trade, no-opt-out-option contract in winter 2019? It seemed like a Phillies World Series championship guarantee.

    Then, we were not disheartened by a narrow Super Bowl loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in February 2023 — enough so to sign Jalen Hurts to a five-year, $255 million contract extension. Two years later, the Eagles returned to the Super Bowl and won it.

    So when the Sixers took it to the next level by taking our breaths away this summer by assembling the finest starting lineup in NBA history with the addition of LeBron James, you just knew something else was coming.

    It turns out that you didn’t have long to wait. The finest defensive tackle in the NFL is now the highest-paid one in NFL history. One year after sending projectile sputum into the South Philadelphia night sky that landed on Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter signed a $152 million contract extension.

    It places him in Philly until 2031, just like Harper. Imagine what other big news we’ll have by then.

    Michael Thomas Leibrandt, Abington

    Protect Head Start

    As the former regional program manager for Head Start in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Philadelphia regional office, I am appalled that the Trump administration is proposing new rules that would impede this popular, successful program. The program, promulgated in 1965 during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, has provided low-income families with enhanced childcare to more than 700,000 preschoolers nationwide, 65,000 in our six-state region.

    Historically, Head Start has contributed to lowering rates of delinquency and teen pregnancy. Head Start kids have a higher propensity to graduate from high school.

    A notable hindrance prohibits the enrollment of children who don’t have at least one parent who was born in the U.S. This would deny Head Start benefits to some children who are U.S.-born. The rule also eliminates access for children with disabilities. Currently, 10% of enrollment includes children with disabilities.

    Previously, the administration called for zero funding for Head Start, but withdrew that proposal because of political pressure. However, the White House did close half the nation’s 10 Head Start federal regional offices, leaving local Head Start programs without crucial guidance and technical assistance.

    If you agree that these proposed rules should not be enacted, let your voice be heard. Contact your local congressional representative.

    Ed Vreeswyk, Head Start regional program manager (retired), HHS Region 3, Philadelphia

    Exercise rights

    A recent article from The Inquirer summarizes new findings from a report on high school sports participation across Pennsylvania. As a pediatric resident who counsels patients and families weekly about the importance of exercise, I was disappointed by the results. While some districts have participation rates above 40%, many had rates of less than 10%. Unfortunately, low participation was also found to be correlated with fewer sports being offered and less funding for sports programs.

    No matter where a student lives, all children 6 years and older need at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity on most days of the week, according to recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Not only does exercise help prevent long-term chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease, but it also benefits kids now. Kids who exercise have improved focus in school, better sleep, and for teens, exercise can help avoid risk-taking behaviors like smoking, drinking, and using drugs.

    This report highlights the need for both more funding and programs for students to participate in school sports. My recommendations as a pediatrician can only go so far if my patients do not have adequate access or equal opportunities to exercise.

    Julianna Lee, Philadelphia

    End removal delays

    There seems to be a wide consensus among residents, civic groups, and even an article in this newspaper that abandoned automobile removal has ceased to be a relatively efficient city service.

    The mayor has made clear she gives cleaning up the city a high priority. Whatever debate this may generate about its efficacy thus far, it was Mayor John F. Street who, over two decades ago, declared war on abandoned cars. He successfully made headway at improving this service. What has changed, then, if residents have to wait up to 120 days for completion of the removals?

    A clear explanation from the mayor — this should come from the top — needs to be given about this. Philadelphia cannot afford to step backward on any code/sanitation/safety-related service provision, especially where significant progress had been made.

    Fortunately, we still have the graffiti abatement team to show us all what efficient and effective service provision looks like each day.

    Ryan Caviglia, Philadelphia

    Join the conversation: Send letters to letters@inquirer.com. Limit length to 150 words and include home address and day and evening phone number. Letters run in The Inquirer six days a week on the editorial pages and online.

  • Dear Abby | Support for some charities can result in a busy mailbox

    DEAR ABBY: Do charities and nonprofits share or sell donor information? For years, maybe decades, I’ve made quarterly contributions to two well-known charities for children’s cancer research hospitals, and I truly believe in what they do. However, over the last few years, I have started receiving an increasing number of requests for money.

    One continues to send me quarterly requests, and I promptly write a check. But the other one started sending mailings every month, then every week and now multiple times a week, not to mention the newer “legacy program” (naming them in my will). I have also received messages on my landline phone, text messages and emails, and none of this contact information has previously been given to them, only my mailing address.

    Today, I received seven pieces of mail. Six were requests for donations, five of which I’m not familiar with, and I have gotten the feeling my name and address have been sold or shared with other nonprofits. It feels to me as if they’re spending the money I’ve donated to print and mail even more requests, and I’ll no longer donate to them. I will increase the amount of donations to local school programs.

    Is there a way to get them to stop mailing me? Maybe they’ll read this and think twice about bombarding people to the point they no longer will support them.

    — FULL MAILBOX IN CALIFORNIA

    DEAR FULL MAILBOX: According to Give.org, businesses and charitable organizations do sell their clients’ or donors’ contact information to other organizations. If your name is on a list of subscribers to a special interest magazine or buyers of a certain product or service, it may wind up on a list used by various charities. You may be able to lessen the onslaught of appeals you receive by writing directly to the charities whose mail you don’t want and asking them to delete your name from the mailing lists they rent or exchange. (A Better Business Bureau standard requires that a charity offer contributors an opt-out opportunity in its appeals at least once a year.)

    Enclose the mailing label or return card that came with your appeal when you contact the charity. Be sure to add the correct postage to their envelope on which you have written “delete my name” or “return to sender” because charities’ nonprofit mailing rates do not pay for returns.

    For more information on this subject, visit Give.org.

    ** ** **

    DEAR ABBY: My mom passed last year. I’m 50, and my brother is 52. He has never been good with money. He’s gullible and lets people take advantage of him. He will not let me help him.

    Should I get a guardianship for him or let him fend for himself? We already have a rocky relationship. I worry that taking control of his finances will make it worse. However, I would feel guilty if he mismanaged his money, and I think Mom would want me to help him. What should I do?

    — MY BROTHER’S KEEPER

    DEAR BROTHER’S KEEPER: Please accept my sympathy for the loss of your mother. It’s unfortunate these questions weren’t settled before her passing. Because your brother needs someone to look out for him, and you are the only one who can fill this role with his best interests in mind, discuss this with an attorney. Of course, it will need to be explained to your brother. Don’t put off talking with him, even if the subject is uncomfortable for one or both of you.

  • Horoscopes: Friday, Aug. 14, 2026

    ARIES (March 21-April 19). Additions and subtractions from the collective unconscious happens one song, one joke, one invention, one conversation at a time. Your contribution doesn’t have to dominate the scene to make an impact. It just has to lodge itself in somebody’s imagination.

    TAURUS (April 20-May 20). Entertainment is never just background. Media becomes habit, sets your standards, shapes your aspirations and influences your definition of things like “normalcy” and “acceptable behavior.” Pay attention to what you invite into your mind and your daily routine.

    GEMINI (May 21-June 21). When it’s not going as planned, it still could be going exactly right. Either way, a simple nod to the universe sets your emotional weather back to breezy. Nothing fancy. “Thanks for everything” will do.

    CANCER (June 22-July 22). Disappointment can feel tragic for a moment, as though you’re a child who dropped the ice cream cone or let go of the helium balloon. But then you remember you’re not a child. You have money. You can buy a new treat.

    LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). Even though you have plenty to do to further your own interests, you feel drawn to pause and help someone. Trust that instinct. You will find a route to your own goals as you detour through someone else’s.

    VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). It’s easy to stand by your principles when nothing is at stake. The real test comes when doing the right thing costs you money, status, convenience or approval. Which values are you willing to pay for?

    LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). As for that message that makes perfect sense in your own head but nowhere else, it’s time to put it on paper. There it will be easier to break it down and examine it piece by piece to determine where the logic cracks.

    SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). A full schedule can create the illusion of progress without actually progressing. Before you add another task, appointment or obligation, pause to consider what the addition will do for you. It’s not a selfish question.

    SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). Having a peaceful home doesn’t guarantee happiness or solve every problem, but it sure does put you in a better mood and mindset to work on solutions and cultivate joy. Kindnesses at the kitchen table will lead to victories elsewhere.

    CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). Your venture is in an exciting stage of uncertainty. It’s too early to turn back. Focus instead on your first small win. It will change your definition of what’s possible. After that, your ambitions begin negotiating with a larger imagination.

    AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). It may seem the work is easier, the industry is more welcoming or the prospects more promising “over there.” But competition and drama exist in every line of work. They just wear job-specific uniforms.

    PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). It’s fun to make the audience listen, laugh or learn, but it only happens when the group is a good match for what you give. Research will be worth it. The ideal room is out there, waiting to be found.

    TODAY’S BIRTHDAY (Aug. 14). It’s your Year of the Crown Jewel. Every collection has one piece people cross distances to admire. You attract like that piece. Cameras find you, people admire your shine and feel more special just for spending time with you. More highlights: Your reputation precedes you, and you can afford to be “expensive” in the ways that matter to you. A victory for the team. You’ll know you’re loved. Sagittarius and Cancer adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 5, 16, 28, 11 and 37.

  • Chatbots are doing the work of Congress with little oversight

    Chatbots are doing the work of Congress with little oversight

    The amendment was one of hundreds filed this summer to an annual defense bill making its way through Congress. Along with her proposed change, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s office had sent a summary of what it would do.

    But the first line made no sense.

    “increasing example specific factors. Identical to H.R. 100 (118th Congress).11:25 AM????Claude responded:”

    One of Luna’s staffers had copied a chatbot’s answer — timestamp and all — and pasted it into the public record of the National Defense Authorization Act.

    As a screenshot of the garbled text circulated on social media, the Florida Republican was nonchalant.

    “Not a shocker,” she wrote. “Most staff use it.”

    Asked later about the incident, Luna went further. “A lot of staff will use ChatGPT, Claude, Grok. I personally like Grok better, but my staffer prefers Claude,” she told the Washington Post. “I’m not going to knock him for that. There’s nothing illegal about him doing a summary.”

    Across the Capitol, lawmakers and staffers are using artificial intelligence to write speeches and news releases, sort constituent mail, prepare questions for congressional hearings, and draft amendments.

    Even as politicians are debating how to govern AI for the rest of America, Congress has already settled how it will use the technology: quickly, broadly, and with little oversight.

    Both chambers have cleared members and staff to use chatbots — Copilot, ChatGPT, Gemini, and, in the House, Claude — for official work, with more under review. The House bought 6,000 Microsoft Copilot licenses last year and encouraged staff to use them.

    Having someone else put words in a lawmaker’s mouth is nothing new. For almost as long as Congress has existed, staffers have been ghostwriting speeches for their bosses. But a speechwriter can be summoned or fired. Chatbots are products built by the tech companies that lawmakers are in charge of regulating.

    Amid the rapid adoption of AI on the Hill, lawmakers face a key question: How much of their responsibilities are they willing to hand over?

    Interviews with more than two dozen lawmakers and staffers — some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal operations — along with internal House and Senate policies obtained by the Post show that the institution has left that question largely unanswered. The few House and Senate rules that exist are poorly understood and seldom enforced. In practice, AI use is left up to the hundreds of individual congressional offices to settle for themselves. It’s not clear how many offices have internal written policies on AI.

    And no one the Post asked knew of any instance where a staffer was formally disciplined by the House or Senate for breaking its rules.

    Luna was right. There was nothing illegal about having AI edit, spell-check — or even write — legislative materials. It wasn’t against House rules, either.

    Her staffer’s only mistake was letting Claude sign its work for others to see.

    Congress’ newest staffer

    Sen. Tommy Tuberville has found a new way to pass the long drives across Alabama: talking to ChatGPT.

    He asks it about Medicare and Medicaid, and listens as the machine’s voice talks back.

    “It’s kind of like you can sit there and talk to an expert,” said the Alabama Republican. “You don’t know whether or not they’re 100% correct. But they put you on the right path.”

    Rep. Mike Flood (R., Neb.) said he consulted a chatbot while working on a bipartisan housing bill that passed this year, asking it where private equity was buying up single-family homes. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), who has proposed stricter legislation on tech companies, uses ChatGPT to look up demographic information.

    One GOP staffer’s boss uses chatbots to generate the occasional cartoon of himself, she said with a laugh. Her explanation: “He’s a boomer.”

    But the real power users are the thousands of staffers who do most of Congress’s work.

    Earlier this year, Rep. Cleo Fields (D., La.) had a town hall coming up in Natchitoches, a city in his district that his press secretary didn’t know well.

    So that aide, Sydney Broome, asked Claude for a list of TV stations in town, its newspapers, and reporters’ names and contacts. Then, she started calling each one.

    At 22, Broome is the youngest full-time staffer and only press secretary for Fields. AI saves her three or four hours of work a week, she said. Her boss does not use it at all.

    ChatGPT first emerged when Broome was still in college. Her professors, unable to stop students from using AI, urged restraint and ran their assignments through AI detection. Students could use it for research, they warned, but never to write from scratch.

    Congress has no such checks. So Broome has imposed them herself.

    She’ll use Claude to find a reporter’s email, but not to write to them. She doesn’t use it to produce anything in her boss’s name. “That’s just kind of a bit of a gray area,” she said.

    Many staffers say they are aware of AI’s limitations. The tools occasionally invent nonexistent bills. Other times, the writing is formulaic and clunky. Still, chatbots help speed up their work.

    A GOP aide in another office said he uses Copilot to write appropriations amendments. The subcommittee he works for used AI to suggest witnesses for a hearing and to help generate the questions lawmakers should ask them.

    Another Republican aide has taken AI even further. He exported all his phone contacts and text messages — years of conversations — into a personal Claude account and told it to build a database of every reporter he has ever dealt with: what he pitched them, which ones they accepted, which exchanges went badly. The chatbot auto-updates itself with each new conversation.

    Recently, his boss wanted to do a TV interview about surveillance law. The aide asked Claude whether he had ever pitched a TV booker on that topic and how it went. It came back instantly with a contact.

    Claude also runs that staffer’s office’s communications budget — the taxpayer-funded mail and ads sent to constituents. “I don’t really have to touch the data in Excel much anymore,” he said.

    The aide said he’s not sure what exactly is permitted by congressional rules. “You’re still not supposed to put constituent data into AI,” he said. “There are weird things around where the rules are. I don’t know all of them.”

    When nobody’s looking

    In 2024, the House Administration Committee convened a private, bipartisan meeting with House officers and outside AI experts to talk through how far to let AI into the legislative process. About 150 chiefs of staff attended.

    Out of it came the first AI guidance for Capitol Hill.

    Internal House and Senate policies obtained by the Post and interviews with people familiar with them show how Congress has embraced the use of AI.

    Last summer, the House bought 6,000 Copilot licenses. The tool was a natural fit for a chamber that already ran on Microsoft and a more secure way to keep congressional work inside a single system, officials believed. Starting in January, offices could sign up for access.

    They came with a major guardrail built into the system: Copilot is designed to refuse political requests. Ask it to criticize a party, politician, or political group, and the machine declines.

    “I can’t create content that criticizes or condemns political parties, politicians, or political groups,” read one Copilot response shared by a staffer. “That includes writing tweets that attack Democrats, Republicans.”

    Roughly half the licenses are now in use, and House officials have extended the deal.

    The rules Congress wrote for itself are loose. Off limits under current House guidance: putting sensitive material such as constituent information into a chatbot, generating deepfakes, making personnel decisions, and finalizing legislation.

    A machine may help write a bill but may not be the last hand on it. It may draft a reply to a constituent but can’t be told who the constituent is.

    In theory, a staffer breaking those rules can be stripped of access to AI tools, suspended, fired, even fined and imprisoned.

    But no one could name a single case of that happening. People familiar with House operations said they’re not aware of any enforcement action by the chief administrative officer. A spokesperson for the CAO said the office can’t comment on potential enforcement actions. A spokesperson for the Senate sergeant-at-arms didn’t respond.

    Catching violations largely falls on staffers, who would have to report a colleague, or themselves.

    Most said in interviews that they don’t know the rules. A former senior Republican House staffer said that his office subscribed to both ChatGPT and Claude and that staff used them however they liked. He wasn’t sure what the rules were, or whether his team followed them. “We just had a free-for-all,” he said.

    The House and Senate encourage individual offices to implement their own written AI policies. If a House office wants Copilot, in theory, it must have a policy in place.

    One reason Congress has moved so quickly to adopt AI tools is to keep pace with the executive branch, said people familiar with internal House operations. The Trump administration has spent the past year and a half pushing AI into every corner of the government.

    “If we are not keeping pace with how the executive branch is functioning,” one person said, “then we’re not performing effective oversight.”

    AI for everything

    The new frontier has left some lawmakers pondering how to proceed.

    “We want to make sure we’re using AI, and AI isn’t using us,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), a constitutional law professor and the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

    Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.) recently worked with her staff on a new policy for her office. They can use AI to “enhance and streamline” work but not to generate “final products” — like floor speeches or public remarks. They have to take AI training. Nothing with personal information about constituents or the senator can be uploaded. And her office is holding unannounced “spot check” inspections.

    “We didn’t want to prohibit the use of the newest tools, but we also didn’t want absolute schlock showing up in my memos,” Slotkin said. “What I’m not willing to do is put my head in the sand and pretend that my young staff aren’t going to find new and interesting ways of doing this.”

    In recent months, one Democratic staffer said his office has been exploring something new: feeding AI his boss’ past statements so the tool can write in the lawmaker’s voice. He heard another office was pulling it off and wanted to try himself.

    In the same building, a GOP press secretary whose office has stricter AI limits said it’s unfair other offices get an advantage. “We could churn out so many op-eds if we were more comfortable with AI,” she said.

    Recently, she found her own press assistant using AI in violation of their office’s policy. “We had to have a very robust conversation about how not to use AI for things in [the boss’s] voice,” she said.

    A preview of what more rampant AI use could look like already exists in state legislatures — many of which have no rules or policies at all.

    Amber Hulse serves in the South Dakota state Senate, where money is tight and lawmakers have no full-time staff. Hulse, a Republican, uses AI for almost everything — policy research, constituent email, speeches, writing legislation.

    Lately, she said, the signs of AI’s effects are getting easier to spot.

    “It’s funny,” Hulse said, “how your ears will start to pick up on the floor someone who’s giving a speech that was very clearly written by AI.”

  • Concerns grow over conditions on Navy carrier

    Concerns grow over conditions on Navy carrier

    WASHINGTON — Democratic senators have begun raising concerns about the extended deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln, amid reports about poor living conditions and a lack of downtime for the crew after more than 8½ months at sea.

    The Lincoln, a San Diego-based aircraft carrier with a crew of about 5,000 sailors, is supporting U.S. operations in the Middle East against Iran.

    In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Hung Cao, the acting Navy secretary, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) described a list of reported problems on the ship.

    “There have been widespread reports of shortages of basic supplies, water contamination, plumbing issues, deteriorating mental health, deck safety concerns, and disruptions in the mail system, which have caused many care packages in route to the ship to be lost in transit for months,” he wrote about the problems, many of which were reported earlier by Navy Times and Stars and Stripes.

    Blumenthal added that the Trump administration had kept aircraft carriers at sea far longer than usual during its pressure campaign against Venezuela and its war with Iran.

    Sen. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.) said in a social media post Wednesday that he was requesting an overnight visit to the Lincoln for a bipartisan delegation of lawmakers.

    “Unlike Donald Trump, I’ve seen active duty,” said Gallego, who served in combat as a Marine. “The way he’s treating our service members as he carries out this illegal war is not just disgusting; it’s dangerous.”

    The Navy is sending the aircraft carrier George Washington to the Middle East to relieve the Lincoln, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about ship schedules.

    “We ​make sure every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide ​them at every single moment,” Hegseth told reporters ​during a visit to Panama on Thursday, according to Reuters. “Some deployments are longer than others, and I have more respect and gratitude for those sailors than anybody. What they do in ​those high seas in those austere conditions with less port calls — it’s incredible.”

    A second carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush deployed on March 31 and is already operating in the Middle East.

    The Navy’s newest carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, was deployed for 326 days before it returned home in May, breaking the record for the longest carrier deployment since the Vietnam War.

    The Ford deployed from Norfolk, Va., on June 24, 2025, and was operating in the Mediterranean when it was redirected to the Caribbean in October as part of the force that captured President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. In February the ship was sent to the Middle East as part of a buildup of U.S. military forces in the region that launched the war against Iran late that month.

    During its deployment, the ship suffered a fire and food shortages along with mechanical problems.

    The longer warship deployments are, the more they wear on people and equipment alike. When in constant operation, gear often begins to break or become inoperable if replacement parts are not readily available. And the nonstop cycle can take a toll on morale.

    Keeping warships out for extended periods often also creates other issues, such as upending plans that keep ships in certain parts of the globe for strategic reasons, along with interrupting shipyard maintenance schedules that are developed years in advance.

    “The Navy has a lot of flexibility to react to contingency operations, but as those deployments get extended and demand more underway time outside of normal schedules, readiness and maintenance suffer,” Mike Franken, a retired Navy vice admiral, said in an interview. “We just don’t have the ability to recover from that quickly. It will take years.”

    The Lincoln itself had to fend off attacks from Iran during the early phase of the war.

    “Iran shot hundreds and hundreds of missiles and one-way attack drones at our aircraft carrier,” Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon on April 8. “Every single one of those shots, easily shot down miles and miles away from the Abe Lincoln.”

    The Lincoln has also helped enforce the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, which initially ran from April 13 until a ceasefire agreement was announced in mid-June, and then resumed on July 15.

    During the first blockade, U.S. Central Command, which directs military operations across the Middle East, said its forces disabled nine “noncompliant” vessels through gunfire and missile attacks, and had “redirected” 135 ships that ultimately complied with the blockade order.

    In the second blockade, there appear to have been fewer U.S. attacks on merchant ships. In its most recent update on Aug. 9, Central Command said it had redirected 55 commercial vessels, disabled two, and boarded two to “ensure compliance” since the blockade was reinstated.

    When the Lincoln’s relief will arrive is unclear, but the George Washington recently passed through the Strait of Malacca — a major transit route through the Pacific Ocean in Indonesian waters — heading west, according to a second U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss warship movements.

    With the Navy’s limited numbers of aircraft carriers being routinely pushed months beyond their scheduled deployments, Franken said, it will begin to limit their availability for combat operations in the future.

    “I guarantee you that the first two years of the Trump administration will definitely affect the next two years of the Trump administration,” he said.

    This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

  • U.S. investigated left-leaning groups during Minnesota immigration crackdown

    U.S. investigated left-leaning groups during Minnesota immigration crackdown

    Four days after Alex Pretti was fatally shot while filming officers taking part in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, the Homeland Security Department quietly opened an investigation at its office in St. Paul.

    The target was not the Border Patrol agents who had killed Pretti, a 37-year-old government nurse, in late January. Instead, it was several left-leaning political organizations — labor unions, a climate change group, socialist collectives — that investigators believed had provided help and money to what they described as the “violent opportunists and agitators” on the street, according to newly released government documents.

    As part of their inquiry, the documents show, Homeland Security officials used an array of invasive tactics during the first half of this year to gather information on many groups and individuals who were never accused of crimes, crossing the line that has traditionally stood between investigating criminal activity and political dissent.

    In one instance, officials used administrative subpoenas to obtain more than three years of financial records from the Sunrise Movement, an environmental action group, and a labor union, the Communications Workers of America. That time frame went well beyond the civil unrest in Minnesota, which was prompted by the deployment of thousands of immigration agents to the state during the winter.

    In another, investigators scrutinized three years’ worth of wire transfers made by the nation’s biggest healthcare workers union, the Service Employees International Union, in what they referred to as an inquiry into “domestic terrorist financing.”

    The documents further detailed an expansive covert surveillance operation in which undercover agents spied on protesters and organizers at meetings held online, as well as in libraries, parks, and churches, taking down not only what they said, but also their names and sometimes license plate numbers. The undercover agents also infiltrated group chats on Signal, listening as activists discussed coming demonstrations and their political opinions.

    So far, none of the organizations targeted by the Homeland Security inquiry, conducted with the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, have faced charges. And yet, as the investigation moved forward, prosecutors showed grand jurors a PowerPoint slide asserting that 18 groups — including the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest federation of labor unions — were part of a conspiracy to impede the work of immigration officers in Minnesota.

    Ultimately, that supposed conspiracy led in June to the indictment of 15 people accused of interfering with law enforcement agents as members of the far-left movement known as antifa.

    The Homeland Security Department did not respond to a message seeking comment. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota declined to answer questions about the investigative tactics.

    By its own account, the institutional left in Minnesota, especially the labor movement, played a central role in bringing out hundreds of thousands of people to march in protest of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in the state. But the demonstrations — and corresponding efforts to monitor the movements of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — were largely undertaken by ordinary residents, most of whom have said they were committed to peaceful resistance.

    “While federal agents repeatedly broke the law, ordinary people exercised their First Amendment rights to protect their neighbors,” said Aru Shiney-Ajay, the executive director of the Sunrise Movement. “The Trump administration is now trying to intimidate individuals and organizations who opposed his agenda.”

    Some of the 15 people charged in the so-called antifa case did, in fact, belong to some of the unions and political organizations that faced scrutiny over several months during the spring and winter. But the newly released documents, which were disclosed as part of a motion asking for more details about the criminal inquiry, suggest that investigators used those tenuous connections to take a deep dive into the inner workings of the groups.

    Kevin Riach, the lawyer who filed the motion, in U.S. District Court in Minnesota, wrote that the Homeland Security investigation into the interference with federal agents “extended far beyond any potential threat to law enforcement safety.”

    “It concluded, with no evidence (but obvious political animus),” he wrote, “that numerous Twin Cities unions and nonprofit organizations were involved in a widespread conspiracy,” adding that “it surveilled and surreptitiously gathered financial records generated by these organizations despite the lack of any connection between those organizations and criminal conduct.”

    The investigation in some ways called to mind Cointelpro, the intrusive counterintelligence program that the FBI ran against leftist groups from the 1950s to the 1970s under the leadership of the bureau’s director, J. Edgar Hoover.

    The Minnesota surveillance reports in particular documented what largely appeared to be political activity protected by the First Amendment. They showed how undercover agents embedded themselves in a “noise protest” outside a hotel where immigration agents were staying and took down notes at other gatherings as demonstrators brainstormed ideas on how to protest the surge of officers who descended on Minnesota late last year.

    Former federal prosecutors questioned why Homeland Security officials took the lead in a case that would typically be overseen by the FBI. Others said that the broad use of subpoenas targeting labor unions and other groups was unusual and concerning, especially if it turns out there was no evidence that the organizations were breaking the law.

    “The government’s power to investigate is extraordinary, and with that power comes a responsibility to exercise care and restraint,” said Harry Jacobs, who resigned as the chief of the criminal division at the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota in January in protest over the Trump administration’s handling of the killing of Renee Good.

    “An investigation should begin with a legitimate basis to suspect criminal conduct, not with a chosen institution or group,” Jacobs added. “Prosecutors must follow the facts and the law wherever they lead, rather than select a target and work backwards to build a case.”

    Several of the groups that were targeted in the inquiry, known as Operation Puppet Master, and in a follow-up investigation called Project Whipple Shield, declined to comment. (Whipple Shield is a reference to the Whipple Building, which served as a hub of the immigration operation.)

    When Daniel N. Rosen, the top federal prosecutor in Minnesota, announced the indictment of the 15 purported antifa members two months ago, he chose his words carefully, insisting that the defendants had been charged only because each of them had “violently opposed” federal agents taking part in the Trump administration’s immigration agenda.

    “Be assured,” he told reporters, “the Department of Justice and my U.S. attorney’s office has and will distinguish between lawful protest and criminal conduct.”

    But what Rosen did not disclose that day was that the charges filed against the 15 defendants stemmed from a sprawling investigation. Its tentacles had touched the lives of scores of ordinary people — teachers, veterans, union members — who in many instances had gotten together to do little more than discuss monitoring ICE agents or abolishing ICE altogether.

    The case in St. Paul, like others against ICE protesters, arose from a sweeping directive issued last year by Trump known as National Security Presidential Memo 7. The memo ordered a whole-of-government approach to stem what officials have described as a rising tide of left-wing political violence.

    But former prosecutors and civil rights lawyers have criticized it for encouraging aggressive investigations and prosecutions of groups and people on the left for activities typically protected by free speech laws.

    In drafting their indictment, prosecutors under Rosen focused on an organization called Direct Action Minnesota, or DAMN, an umbrella group that describes itself as a “decentralized coalition of working-class people engaged in various forms of community defense against the current federal occupation” in Minnesota. Prosecutors said that the group trained its members in how to use shields against law enforcement officers, conduct surveillance, plan events, and mount “rapid mass mobilization” against actions by ICE officers.

    The indictment details some behavior by protesters with ties to DAMN that clearly seems violent or obstructive.

    For example, prosecutors said that on Jan. 23, demonstrators who had gathered at the Whipple Building threw ice blocks at law enforcement vehicles. They also formed a blockade, boxing federal agents into one area near the federal building. Weeks later, prosecutors added, some of the defendants put debris in a road outside the building, trying to block access to it.

    But the indictment also notes that the defendants often relied on information gleaned from group chats whose members tracked and monitored vehicles going to and from the Whipple Building — behavior that is not necessarily illegal. Indeed, the federal judge overseeing the case, Katherine M. Menendez, has already issued an order in a separate civil proceeding saying that protesters cannot be arrested simply for following federal agents in their vehicles.

    Nonetheless, some groups that organized and ran the group chats were targeted by the surveillance operation and later identified in the prosecutors’ grand jury presentation as being part of the conspiracy to interfere with ICE agents. Other members of the alleged conspiracy were said to include the local chapters of the SEIU and the Democratic Socialists of America, a state teachers union — and even the Grease Pit, a small bike shop in Minneapolis.

    In his motion, Riach described how federal agents took down the license plate numbers of people who attended a protest at a church in Roseville, Minn., and used that information to obtain their names. The agents then searched social media for images of the people, compiling an “intel work-up” that included detailed personal information about them.

    “None of these individuals did anything other than engage in protected First Amendment speech in a church meeting room,” Riach wrote. “Yet now their personal information is memorialized in a DHS dossier.”

    This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

  • In the Reflecting Pool saga, the National Park Service’s mission is tested by Trump’s demands

    In the Reflecting Pool saga, the National Park Service’s mission is tested by Trump’s demands

    WASHINGTON— President Donald Trump’s botched repairs at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool have landed the National Park Service in a tight spot, forced to serve the public while managing controversial demands by the Republican president.

    The beloved federal agency, its iconic park rangers, and other employees have been navigating a new reality under Trump, from orders to revise exhibits at parks and other sites to the demolition of important structures under its stewardship, such as the White House’s East Wing, to arresting visitors for alleged vandalism at the pool.

    Critics say the monthslong Reflecting Pool saga and other demands by Trump risk undermining the integrity of a federal agency that has long been held in high esteem by the American public.

    “Never — not once in decades — have I witnessed such systematic degradation, disrespect, and dismantling of the National Park Service as I see today under the thumb of President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum,” said Bill Wade, a former park ranger and superintendent.

    Wade, who now serves as executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers, wrote an op-ed for the Denver Post lamenting what he called the Trump administration’s “assault on the people, the mission and the values that have made the National Park Service one of America’s most valued institutions.”

    The park service has been at the center of some of Trump’s most contentious actions during his second term. An executive order targeted funding and demanded reviews at national parks and other sites that Trump said advanced “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology,” resulting in changes to some exhibits on slavery or climate change.

    The president has also ordered sweeping changes to historical monuments and buildings in Washington that fall under NPS’ purview, including the creation of a White House ballroom and a 250-foot-tall memorial arch. The agency meanwhile has lost at least one-quarter of its permanent workforce since Trump began his second term, through layoffs, forced retirements, and resignations.

    Park service employees “are being politicized and drawn into the absurdities and corruption of this administration” on a regular basis, said California Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee. He cited the pool project, the proposed arch, and the executive order on exhibit materials.

    The ongoing political assault on the agency “is unlike anything we’ve seen in this country, and it makes life miserable at agencies like the National Park Service,” Huffman said.

    Reflecting Pool saga continues

    Trump launched repairs at the Reflecting Pool earlier this year, hoping to address longstanding problems at the iconic site ahead of the America 250 celebrations. But the $16 million project faced immediate problems, including peeling blue sealant and a fierce return of green algae.

    Trump blamed the sealant issues on vandalism without providing evidence, and felony charges were brought against a former Olympic canoeist, David Hearn, after he was accused of vandalizing the pool.

    The U.S. Park Police, a unit of the National Park Service, arrested Hearn, who denied wrongdoing and said he briefly touched a chunk of the coating.

    Charges against Hearn were dropped on July 31 after prosecutors acknowledged that damage was caused by a bungled installation rather than vandalism.

    The advice and counsel of career officials and rangers — instantly recognizable by their signature flat hats and green-and-gray uniforms — has been ignored or pushed aside as Trump and Burgum make decisions regarding the failed pool repair, according to an Interior Department employee who was not authorized to discuss internal discussions and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

    “It’s tragic,” said Ed Stierli, vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, another advocacy group. “The whole thing is a master class in how not to go about a public rehabilitation project.”

    In the days since the dismissal of the charges, Trump has continued to lean on NPS in his repeated claims that vandals damaged the pool’s lining.

    “A National Park Service career employee, a highly credible witness, saw David Hearn … in broad daylight vandalize the Reflecting Pool by ‘violently’ ripping and tugging at the Pool’s somewhat delicate coating,” Trump posted Aug. 9 on his Truth Social site. Hearn’s legal team said Trump “is continuing to attack an innocent man.”

    Stierli, of the parks conservation group, called Trump’s reference to the unnamed park employee an example of the awkward position agency workers now face under Trump and Burgum, who has publicly backed Trump’s claims about vandalism at the pool.

    “I think the public understands that unfortunately, you have the president of the United States directly driving decisions, both here in Washington and around the country,” Stierli said. The park service — and especially its career staff — “has very little control over this,” he added.

    The White House and the Interior Department did not directly respond to requests for comment on the park service. The White House defended the pool project, saying Trump “promised to make D.C. safe and beautiful, and he’s delivering.”

    “For years, the Reflecting Pool sat neglected, plagued with algae, and leaking millions of gallons of water,” the White House said in a statement. “Fixing it was common sense.”

    Park service morale is at its lowest point, a former official says

    Wade, the former park superintendent, called the pool repair “a comedy of errors” and “a continuation of the incompetence” shown by the Trump administration.

    “Most people realize the NPS is under the gun and can’t do much about it, even though they’d like to,″ he said, adding that morale at the agency is at the lowest point he can remember.

    Edicts from Washington have made clear that speaking honestly about what is going on could cost staffers their jobs, Wade said. “There’s a very strong fear among employees at NPS,″ he said in an interview. “It’s very frustrating for them, as you can imagine.”

    Trump’s proposed memorial arch has faced some pushback. A recent report by park service staff warned that the proposed gilded arch could disrupt the historical significance of dozens of sites around its planned location near the Lincoln Memorial.

    The arch, which last month received initial approval from a key federal commission, would impact the “integrity” of dozens of historical properties because it would change “character-defining visual and spatial relationships” between them, the report said.

    Americans view the National Park Service favorably

    The park service is popular with Americans. About three-quarters of U.S. adults — including similar shares of Democrats and Republicans — have a favorable opinion of the agency, according to Pew Research Center polling from 2025. Only about 1 in 10 have a negative impression, and about 15% are unsure.

    A Washington Post/Ipsos poll from July found that about two-thirds of Americans say they are “dissatisfied” or “upset” about Trump’s Washington area projects, including construction of a new ballroom at the White House, painting the Reflecting Pool, and building his triumphal arch. Republicans are more likely to be “enthusiastic” or “satisfied” with the projects.

    About one-quarter of U.S. adults say Trump’s goal is to “make Washington more beautiful,” while about half say he has a “different goal.” In an open-ended question, many respondents speculated that Trump wants to glorify himself or leave his mark.

    The pool and other recent controversies including the exhibit reviews jeopardize the agency’s credibility, Wade said.

    “Whether interpreting the Civil War, discussing climate science, or describing the complex stories of Indigenous people, rangers have sought to present evidence, not political ideology,’’ he said. ”That is now being lost.”

  • Poland says it thwarted a Russian plot to kill an American citizen in Warsaw

    Poland says it thwarted a Russian plot to kill an American citizen in Warsaw

    WARSAW — A Russian plan to kill a Ukrainian American citizen in Warsaw was thwarted by Poland before it could be carried out, the Polish prime minister said Thursday, adding it was the first time that “someone on the order of Russia” sought to attack a U.S. citizen on the territory of another NATO country.

    Western officials have previously warned that Russia stepped up a campaign of targeted killings since President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, saying they have disrupted several plots across Europe. But Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said this incident was unprecedented.

    The suspect, who was allegedly recruited by Russia’s secret services, was detained by Polish authorities on Aug. 7. He will be held in custody for three months, the Warsaw police said in a statement.

    The American Ukrainian citizen “was uncomfortable for the Putin regime,” Tusk said in a news conference, without elaborating.

    The operation was carried out in cooperation with U.S. services, said Tomasz Siemoniak, Poland’s minister overseeing intelligence services. He said the targeted victim was a U.S. citizen “of Ukrainian origin.” Officials did not immediately provide further details.

    The Russian Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The U.S. State Department said it was aware of the reports but said it had no additional information.

    Western countries believe Russia seeks to undermine Ukraine’s allies

    Russia has long been accused of targeting its enemies abroad, including by using rare poisons. But intelligence officials previously told the Associated Press that Russia’s security services are now more brazen in their choice of targets, going after Russian activists and foreign supporters of Ukraine as well as military defectors.

    “We must assume that the Putin regime will try to eliminate people who are inconvenient for various reasons, in various places around the world,” Tusk said on Thursday. He said that Poland and others must be prepared to counter such actions.

    Western officials see the campaign as connected to Russia’s broader efforts to undermine European countries that support Ukraine. The AP has mapped about 200 acts of sabotage, arson, and other disruption across Europe since the start of the war that officials have linked to Russia. President Vladimir Putin told the AP in June that Russia is not waging a sabotage campaign against Europe.

    In 2006, British authorities accused Russia of being behind the killing of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London with radioactive polonium. The U.K. also blames Russia for the attempted killing of former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018 with the nerve agent Novichok.

    German authorities said Russia organized the 2019 killing of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a former Chechen rebel commander who was shot in a Berlin park by Vadim Krasikov, a hitman who was later greeted by Putin after he was exchanged in a spy swap.

    In June, a Russian artist who was critical of Putin was shot and killed at close range near his home in eastern Poland. Tusk said at the time that the killing of Robert Kuzovkov, known by the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky, had the hallmarks of a political assassination. He suggested it was possible Russia was behind it but Polish officials have not yet attributed it to Moscow.

    Last year French officials disrupted a plot which they believe was aimed at killing Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian exile who lives under police protection and works to help military defectors flee Putin’s war. Lithuanian officials also disrupted a plot last year to kill a Lithuanian supporter of Ukraine and another against a Russian activist. Officials in Germany have similarly broken up two plots: one to target the head of a German weapons company supplying Ukraine, the other against a Ukrainian military official.

    Polish authorities arrested a man in 2024 in what they said was a plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. That year, a Russian helicopter pilot who defected was killed in Spain — with Russian operatives the prime suspects.

    “This campaign is not by accident or chance,” a senior European intelligence official previously told the AP. “There is political authorization.”

  • Congo’s fastest-growing Ebola outbreak reaches a sixth province

    Congo’s fastest-growing Ebola outbreak reaches a sixth province

    KINSHASA, Congo — Congo’s Ebola outbreak has spread to a sixth province after a death was recorded in the previously unaffected Bas-Uele province, the head of Africa’s CDC said Thursday.

    The man died in Buta, the capital of Bas-Uele, after traveling there from Isiro in Haut-Uele province, said Jean Kaseya, director general of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

    He was a motorcycle-taxi driver who had sought treatment at several hospitals before he died, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, head of Congo’s National Institute ​for Biomedical Research, said. His colleagues tried to forcibly take his dead body, prompting police intervention and concerns that more people may have been exposed to the virus, Muyembe added.

    The outbreak in eastern Congo, considered the fastest-growing one yet, is on track to surpass the deadliest one in history, which erupted over a decade ago and killed over 11,000 people, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. There are no approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo virus responsible for the current outbreak.

    It has killed over 2,100 people out of more than 4,500 cases, according to the latest government figures. This death toll has been reached almost three times faster than in the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa — the worst in history.

    The outbreak is unfolding in some of the most challenging conditions imaginable, with strikes by some unpaid health workers, threats by rebel groups, anger from long-traumatized communities, and misinformation asserting that Ebola isn’t real.

    Bas-Uele is a vast province in northeastern Congo that borders the Central African Republic, where there is recurring armed violence that has forced thousands to flee and take refuge in the province. Access can be difficult due to bad and poorly connected roads as well as limited communication networks, and there are frequent population movements related to gold mining and displacement from conflict.

    As of Thursday, six out of 26 of Congo’s provinces have been impacted. About 90% of all cases and 80% of deaths are concentrated in Ituri province, the WHO said Wednesday.

    Mercy Corps, an aid group, warned Thursday that Ebola cases have been reported along a major travel route about 22 miles from Congo’s border with South Sudan, expressing concern over the outbreak’s “widening footprint.” No cases have been confirmed in South Sudan so far.

    Unpaid health workers’ strikes, low contact tracing hamper response

    Meanwhile, health workers at the Nizi Treatment Center in Ituri province, one of the most affected in the area, went on strike Thursday, leading to the temporary closure of the center after they said they have not been paid for three months.

    Kaseya on Thursday called on the Congolese government to pay the outstanding salaries.

    “We need to pay health workers,” he told reporters. “This is the responsibility of the government, not partners. And they told us that money is available.”

    The real scope of the outbreak remains unknown. It was declared on May 15, but the WHO now says sequencing showed it began months earlier, in February.

    Health authorities have said between 60% and 70% of new cases are recorded outside contacts being monitored, and that the disease is spreading at an “alarming” rate. Contact tracing helps break chains of transmission by finding exposed people early and reacting quickly if they show symptoms.

    “We are chasing the virus; the virus is ahead of us,” the WHO regional director for Africa, Mohamed Yakub Janabi, said this week.

    On Thursday, Kaseya from Africa CDC said, “The concept of contact tracing in DRC has become useless.”

    Trials for treatments and vaccines are underway

    Ebola is rare but highly contagious and can be contracted from bodily fluids such as vomit, blood, or semen, and from contaminated surfaces and materials such as bedding and clothing. The disease it causes is severe and often fatal.

    Clinical trials of two possible treatments for this type of Ebola began last month in Ituri, the most affected of the provinces in Congo where cases have been reported.

    Two vaccines developed specifically for the Bundibugyo virus are now being tested in people for the first time, the WHO said Wednesday.

    WHO also plans to test whether an existing Ebola vaccine could protect people against the virus after studies in animals showed promising results.

    Kaseya said on Thursday that the Africa CDC supports the use of Ervebo, a vaccine authorized against the Zaire Ebola strain, in provinces impacted by Bundibugyo virus. He said some studies show some cross-protection from the available vaccines.

    “We are in a gray area,” he said. “And when you are in a gray area, you have to make strong decisions to stop seeing people dying.”

  • Flock unveils changes after Post report on police misuse of its network

    Flock unveils changes after Post report on police misuse of its network

    The country’s most prominent seller of automated license-plate readers said Thursday it will enact major changes in hopes of more proactively preventing abuse by police officers.

    Flock, the maker of a vast roadside camera network that maps cars’ movements into a database searchable by law enforcement, said it would for the first time start requiring officers to label every search with a criminal case number and automatically review all searches for “abnormal activity,” a previously voluntary feature that the company said was used by about a third of its 7,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide.

    Flock also said it would reduce the default setting for how long license-plate data is stored, from 30 days to seven, and give police departments more control over how their data is shared with other agencies.

    The announcement comes roughly a week after the Washington Post reported that at least 50 officers had been accused, charged with, or convicted of misusing Flock’s system and other license-plate readers to spy on people’s locations, including to stalk their girlfriends and ex-wives. Since publication, the Post has confirmed more than a dozen additional cases of license-plate-reader misuse.

    The case number and automated-review features were previously offered to agencies as optional settings. Policing experts and civil liberties advocates identified those two features in the Post report as key product shifts that could help combat misuse.

    Flock chief executive Garrett Langley said in an interview that the changes reflected the system’s “continual evolution of Flock’s responsibility to the communities we help serve.” Company executives, he said, had declined to mandate them sooner because they expected more local officials would activate the antiabuse features on their own.

    “I had this hope that local lawmakers at the state and local level would move very quickly and they’d look at the things that we’re recommending as optional and say, ‘Great, we’re going to force it.’ And they haven’t,” he said. “Instead of waiting, we said, ‘Look, we should just move faster.’”

    Max Isaacs, director of technology law and policy at the New York University School of Law’s Policing Project, said the shift was a “welcome change” but that he questioned what had taken the company so long to implement it.

    “There is no reason the system shouldn’t have been designed that way to begin with,” he said of the case number requirement. “Ultimately, though, this kind of safeguard should be required by law. It’s completely backward that we are relying on this one company to implement the kinds of things that ought to just be standard everywhere.”

    Flock, which is based in Atlanta, has installed more than 120,000 of the artificial-intelligence-enabled cameras across the U.S. since 2017. The company said the 20 billion plate scans recorded every month by its cameras have helped officers investigate 1 million crimes a year.

    Although Flock’s training guides encourage officers to use the search tool exclusively for official police work, the company only began offering agencies the option to require that officers tag every search with a criminal case number in July 2025.

    In misuse-case records reviewed by the Post, some officers frequently looked up car locations without providing any details linking the searches to legitimate criminal investigations.

    In April, Flock announced an automatic review feature, known as Audit Assistance, and said the tool would scan officers’ searches for suspicious behavior, such as repeated targeting of a single plate or bursts of searches in the middle of the night. Flock officials declined to share the criteria the system uses to look for abnormal behavior, arguing that sharing the details would help bad actors avoid detection.

    The company has announced that some officers have been charged with misusing the system following an Audit Assistance report. But Isaacs recommended treating the system with “a healthy dose of skepticism,” given that it relies on artificial intelligence, not human experts, to find suspicious conduct.

    “It’s good to see vendors developing accountability features,” he said, “but until we have some evidence that this tool does what it says it does, I don’t think we should rely on it to replace any human auditing measures.”

    Flock also said it would reduce the default length of time for how long plate scans are saved to seven days. Agencies can choose to ignore that default and increase their data-retention policies to as long as a year with prior approval from an elected official or governing body, the company’s evidence policy said.

    It also will launch a feature called Evidence Mode that will allow officers to preserve license-plate data beyond that retention window “for cases that need more time,” a company announcement said.

    Flock currently allows police departments to share their license-plate data with other agencies beyond city, county, or state lines. But as part of the changes, the company said it would begin allowing agencies to determine the types of investigations for which its data can be shared. A city could, for example, allow its camera data to be searched for violent crimes but not for immigration enforcement, the announcement said.

    Langley said he spoke to 100 police chiefs in the last week to preview the changes and that all were supportive of the shift. He argued that the cases of misuse reported by the Post showed that Flock’s long-running strategy of recording all officer searches into audit logs that agency leaders can examine to investigate misconduct helped fight abuse.

    “It’s not that people abuse Flock,” he said. “It’s that Flock actually found cops that abused their power, and I want to find all of them.”

    Flock said it was still considering additional changes, including a function that would automatically lock out officers whose activity met the “criteria for abnormal behavior” until their searches were reviewed by an agency administrator, according to the announcement.

    In some towns, however, the agency’s Flock administrators are the police chiefs themselves, and some chiefs have been fired or charged with criminal misconduct in cases of Flock misuse previously reported by the Post. Langley said he hoped that, given the “increased level of attention” to the problem, local mayors and city managers would take a more proactive role in pushing for regular agencywide audits or supervision by outside law enforcement.

    Marci Bakely, an Air Force veteran in Georgia whose police chief ex-boyfriend searched her plate hundreds of times and was charged with stalking and misuse of a license-plate reader, said in an interview that she hoped the changes would curb abuse but that she worried it was mostly a “temporary Band-Aid” to shield the company from criticism.

    “They knew before that stuff like this would happen. So now they want to wait until after it’s been brought to the public’s eye?” she said. “Now it’s a big deal, whereas before it didn’t mean anything? They weren’t worried about it, but now it’s been brought to the light.”