The Philip DeFranco Show - The Flock Cameras Problem Is Getting Worse

Starting point is 00:00:00 And then there's more we gotta dive into in just a minute, but first let me thank a sponsor and say, you know, August is a great time for a reset before fall gets chaotic and my closet, it could use some adult supervision. That's where today's sponsor, Quince comes in. Quince makes fewer better pieces from premium materials, the things you'll reach for constantly. And I really like their staples like organic cotton teas and Mongolian cashmere sweaters at work all day and into the evening. Or basically, clothes that make you look put together without looking like you spend an hour planning it. Their denim and Taylor Chino start at 60 bucks with a fit, structure, and quality that you'd expect from a luxury designer brand. And then you've got things like the cotton silk short sleeve crew neck sweater.

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Starting point is 00:00:57 So hey, upgrade your everyday by scanning that QR code or going to quince.com slash defranco for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. And they're now available in Canada and the UK as well. So that's QU-I-N-C-E dot com slash defranco. Quince.com slash defranco. There's not a ton that people in this country agree on left versus right, but something that we're seeing more and more people getting aligned on is fuck flock cameras. And if you're someone that's, you know, maybe heard about it, but you don't know fully what a flock camera is, here's the thing.

Starting point is 00:01:25 There's a good chance that your movements have already been recorded. Or because flock safety is this company that makes automatic license plate readers or ALPRs, which are AI powered cameras installed by police department, cities, businesses, schools, and neighborhoods all across the country. They capture the make, model, color, license plate numbers of the cars that pass by and the date, the time, and the location of detection. And you've got flocks saying, hey, they're made to help communities respond to crime and safety incidents by helping recover stolen vehicles, aid in police investigations, and just so much more. But then you've got just so many critics arguing that these are tools of just a surveillance state, with, for example, the ACLU explaining. If there are flock cameras in your city, they are tracking, logging, and sharing your movements without a warrant.

Starting point is 00:02:00 Or because you have this situation where when one flock camera detects a vehicle, that information stored in flock system and can be searched by participating in law enforcement agencies anywhere. Right, not just by officials in your town or even your state, but at any agency with a flock contract allowing this level of access. And while flock, they're not the only company creating and deploying this kind of technology, they are by far the most prominent and well-known. They capture 20 billion license plate reads per month across 6,000 communities. And you've got the ACLU estimating that between 80 to 100, 100,000 of these cameras are installed in both urban and rural areas throughout the country.

Starting point is 00:02:29 But also, I'll tell you that by the time that you're just even done watching this video, there might be one or two less in this country. And that's because of the rapid rate that you're seeing these things getting vandalized. Right? You're seeing things like over in Avon, Colorado. You had the police posting about felony criminal mischief after three cameras, including a flock camera, were knocked down and destroyed. And the reason I bring up that one specifically is because on the post where they asked the community for any information. They ended up getting 18,000 comments, but not from people that were like,

Starting point is 00:02:52 hey, I want to help, or rather just from so many people who are expressing their frustration with flock surveillance and even people actively supporting the destruction. And then you've seen things like a guy in the Minneapolis area, he's gone viral for posting videos about how he's climbed up poles and take down dozens of flock cameras in his state. He's even posted content teaching others how to do the same. And in California, he had some throwing pain on them, others accused of straight up running them over with their cars. And it's all over.

Starting point is 00:03:14 In Florida, they've also been hit with spray paint in New York. They've been sawed in half. In New Mexico, a guy was accused of destroying multiple cameras and then replacing them with flags. And there, even after a judge said that she would issue an arrest warrant, he told the local news, You have plans to continue to take down these flock carriers. Absolutely. No, absolutely. They are a clear and present threat to public safety. You should understand this is just a small sampling of a nationwide trend, right? This is happening in tons of states.

Starting point is 00:03:37 So not everything is so destructive, right? You have some just trying to raise awareness that these cameras exist at all. So you've got people like in Florida, there's this 77-year-old man who camps out in front of these cameras in a lawn chair while holding up a big sign to block the lens and protest. And also to highlight how widespread flock tools are, many have turned to a site called D-Flock. Right, and it has this interactive map tracking all kinds of automatic license plate readers. The site's creator telling the Wall Street Journal

Starting point is 00:03:59 that overall, I don't think the government should know where we are all the time. While you have the CEO of Flock, saying that he does respect some criticisms of the company, here's also what he said about this effort to just tell people where these cameras are. Unfortunately, there's terroristic organizations, like D.Flock, whose primary motivation is chaos.

Starting point is 00:04:16 They are closer to Antifa than they are anything else. And that I think is unfortunate, because we don't want chaos or I don't want chaos. I like law and order. So essentially, if you're not on board, you're using this site, you made the site. That's terrorism, organized terrorism. And while he has since apologized, one,

Starting point is 00:04:31 a lot of people just don't believe him, but also two, many believe that this response in general, it just highlights the problem here. And in some ways, the backlash against Vloc is working. Cities, towns, and counties across the country, they have been holding these tent town halls where you have residents objecting to their taxpayer funds or other public grants being spent on these cameras.

Starting point is 00:04:47 And sometimes it works, around 55 localities ended their contracts with Flock in the past year. Right, one of the things is that concerns about these cameras, they go way beyond just how freak it is that they capture and store our cars as movements. Are you at 4-4 media doing this report alleging that they can be used to track individual people, not just vehicles? In claiming that police departments have used these cameras for this purpose hundreds of times using searches like

Starting point is 00:05:06 heavy-set mail with black and white hat or person on skateboard. And you have their article explaining, these are called free-form searches and allow cops to use FLOC's system as though they would use a search engine with flocks, AI, and image recognition interpreting what footage and which people are relevant to a police officer's search. And these searches, they'll go across dozens or even hundreds of networks of cameras at once. And they're often vague enough that they end up pulling images of unrelated innocent people. Now for their part, you had flock publishing a blog post earlier this year saying that it's not a mass surveillance tool, insisting that, quote, flock ALPRs do not and cannot track vehicles, much less individual people.

Starting point is 00:05:38 They also told 404 that these freeform searches are not facial recognition and that their products do not have or use any facial recognition technology. Well, you've got people doubting that, whether it be now or what they do in the future, many also think that they don't need facial recognition tech to be alarming. So you have people like a senior policy analyst from the ACLU saying, Much of the world hasn't quite caught up yet to how much more powerful a surveillance camera is today compared to a few years ago. AI video analytics means that giant oceans of video data can now be searched the same way big text files can be including for sensitive content such as t-shirts, tattoos, and bumper stickers. Even without face recognition, that's a significant increase in surveillance capability. Right, you also had a policy council with the Center for Democracy and Technology saying these cameras, they're like a bait-and-switch.

Starting point is 00:06:18 It's like being told that you're getting a smoke detector and then later learning that it also records all your conversations. And understand, Flock's cameras are already being abused by some of the police officers who use them for personal searches like stalking exes. Newsweek alone found examples in 12 states where officers had been accused of misusing these camps. And it's happened multiple times just here in Georgia, where some officers have been charged with violating their oath. And they're not alone. In Alabama, some officers have been fired or resigned for improperly using the cameras. And Milwaukee an officer was sentenced to 12 months probation after using Flock to track his ex-girlfriend and her new partner. But apparently, searching for her over 120 times in the system. And they also have issues with a lack of transparency for what exactly these cameras could be used for.

Starting point is 00:06:55 Are you with the Electronic Frontier Foundation saying it? There was this one case in Texas where deputies said that they were searching for a woman as a missing person, when in reality they were using data on her as a part of an abortion investigation. There are then also reports that ICE are using these cameras for emigration enforcement. And in California, police allegedly illegally shared data from automatic license plate readers with ICE in Border Patrol. And then you also have just tons of these situations where these cameras fuck up and they misread plates and they cause confusion or even lead police to investigate the wrong person. You had Business Insider reporting that there was one town in California where flocks machine learning software misread license plates in 71% of the alerts that it sent to officers.

Starting point is 00:07:27 If you had an employee that failed 71% of the time, you would fire them. That's not an employee. That is a raccoon that somehow got into the building. And so some of the things you'd see was like in one case who would repeatedly confuse a nine on a plate for an eight falsely identifying a man's car as stolen. You also had seen an Ann report on a case where a car reviewer in Minnesota was test driving a range over when all of a sudden officer swarmed his car because it was reported as stolen even though it was owned by Land Rover North America. But it then got mixed up with a car in Los Angeles with a similar plate that have been reported missing. And according to the ACLU,

Starting point is 00:07:56 one in 10 license plate scans from flock, they misread the state and under 1% of the cars scanned are connected to any crime or wrongdoing. And so it ends up really not being too surprising that as more people learn about what's happening here, there's just kind of this united hatred no matter your political party. Or you just have the likes Nithia Rahman,

Starting point is 00:08:11 the left wing mayoral candidate in Los Angeles saying that the city should cut ties with flock, arguing surveillance without oversight does not create public safety, saying it tracks innocent people Mables abuse and puts Angelinos in danger. And then all the way on the other side of the aisle, you had Tucker Carlson devoting a whole episode of a show to this. And while he didn't defend people who were vandalizing the cameras, he did say.

Starting point is 00:08:28 There are videos, in other words, of people who don't feel they have any other recourse whatsoever making one last ditch attempt to preserve the one thing that makes them free in this or any other country, their birthright, by the way, and it's called privacy. They don't have it. They'd like it back. They think the Constitution guarantees it to them. Their lawmakers don't care. Their leaders don't care.

Starting point is 00:08:48 Their police departments don't care. they don't think it's to make them safer. They understand that it's to strip them of their most basic humanity, which it is. And so with what seems to be at least some degree of a united sentiment, there do appear to be efforts in Congress to crack down on these cameras.

Starting point is 00:09:03 And so, for example, you had Representative Thomas Massey promising to sponsor a bill that would withhold federal money from municipalities and police departments that deploy flock and other style cameras to surveil law-abiding citizens. Because again, a lot of the outrage here,

Starting point is 00:09:14 yes, it's around that it's happening in the first place, but also because public funds or grants and gifts given to cities are being used to pay for these in a lot of cases. Even though the people that the money is meant to benefit do not always want these cameras watching them. And echoing that, you had Massey telling the Cincinnati Inquirer, I do not think that the federal government should be subsidizing the safety of cities

Starting point is 00:09:32 who decided to go beyond the pale and basically turn their communities into a version of 1984. Saying as the Constitution requires, you have to have probable cause and reasonable suspicion to spy on people. You can't just spy on everybody. And adding that the security provided by those cameras does not justify the privacy it strips away. arguing you can solve every crime if you put tags in us and tracked us everywhere and made us all wear body cameras, but at what cost? But with all that said, I then got to turn it to you. What are your thoughts here? What's your opinion? What's your reaction? Whether, you know, this is how you're first learning about these cameras, if you've been a long-time flogator or even if you land somewhere else. And then there's even more we got to dive into in just a minute, but first, let me thank a sponsor and say, you know, booking a doctor's appointment, it should take five minutes. Yet somehow it turns into three phone calls, two voicemails on a calendar negotiation with a stranger. And then once the scheduling negotiations are final, I mean, Let's be real. Who actually remembers an appointment they booked four months ago? So I say, do what I do and use today's sponsor, Zock Dock Dock.

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Starting point is 00:11:07 That's Z-C-D-O-C-C-com slash Phil. But then dive in right back into the news, we've got to talk about this insane Max Miller situation. He's a second term Republican representative who got big quickly, mostly because of his close relationship with Donald Trump. And it was kind of this foregone conclusion that he was going to win his reelection against Democratic candidate Brian Poindexter. Because the seat in district, it's really firmly read. Then you had this dispute with Miller's ex-wife, Emily Moreno, gaining more and more attention. Because you have Emily accusing Miller of abusing both her and their two-year-old daughter,

Starting point is 00:11:36 specifically saying that he threw scalding hot water from a skillet at Emily, held a gun to her head, shoved her up against the wall, and Emily says that he even fractured their daughter's collarbone and bruised her shoulder. But Miller, he's publicly denied all this and gone on the offense of calling Emily mentally ill, a liar, and a stalker who has put both him and his daughter in danger. Also in court, he's accused her of making repeated false reports to child protective services, medical professionals, and law enforcement. You have him saying that she has untreated bipolar disorder and that she's stalking him and trying to damage his reputation. And as far as her daughter, Miller says that her broken collarbone was actually Emily's fault caused by her reckless driving. So with all that, Miller has sued both Emily and her legal team for defamation and you had a campaign spokesperson saying, the facts speak for themselves.

Starting point is 00:12:13 The court has continued to permit him joint custody of his child. There were credible evidence supporting these outrageous accusations that simply would not be the case. Congressman Miller will continue to vigorously defend his reputation against false and reckless allegations designed to inflame public opinion rather than reflect reality. And while all of this is largely playing out in the court and the headlines, you have Emily staying out of the public eye for the most part. Her father, Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, has not. And so over the weekend you saw him taken to Twitter to say that Miller shouldn't be allowed to serve in the U.S. House writing, as he's admitted privately, Max Miller needs serious psychological help, saying he is a danger to my daughter. daughter and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter.

Starting point is 00:12:48 If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them. I believe Max Miller needs to seek professional help to end the clear pattern of abuse he has left in his way. I believe he should not be free to continue endangering others until he does. And then as far as the Trump of it all, right now it's at least not looking like Trump is gonna swoop in to save the day. Right, no matter how outside he was with Miller at one point, with sources telling the New York Times that Trump's inner circle is pretty pissed with the way that Miller is handling the situation. Where with many viewing this is a disaster of his own making and his own mess to clean up himself.

Starting point is 00:13:15 And so then with that, you're seeing that a lot of Republicans are kind of staying either lukewarm or just silent on this issue altogether. And you have that standing out on its own, but it's also worth pointing out because Republicans were very loud in their criticism of Democrats, Eric Swalwell and Graham Platner when allegations against them came out. And so it puts a different sheen on situations like House Speaker Mike Johnson being asked, you know, why Miller and Corey Mills from Florida, they're still allowed in the Republican conference after they had domestic abuse allegations laid against them.

Starting point is 00:13:38 Especially as you have situations where Democrats dump Plattener. But as far as Johnson, he said that the key word in the situation is allegations and added, we have a process here. I'm not in the business of commenting on investigations as they're in process and we'll see how that shakes out. And that ends up also being similar to what Trump himself said. I'm not going to look at it. I mean, so far it's accusations. I'll be looking at it. That's as, you also have people like Representative Jim Jordan saying things like this. I know Max is a good man. I was up campaigning for him. I hope he wins re-election. He's done a good job as a member of Congress and we should all pray for his family. These are difficult times that they're going through.

Starting point is 00:14:09 We understand that. These kind of situations always are. And what you've seen there is that even within the Republican Party, some people kind of pissed at the response from prominent leaders. Of course, a very big thing that we've seen over the, especially these last 10 years, is who is publicly associating their name with some sort of critique and who says it anonymously. So with that in mind, you had one anonymous GOP operative telling Politico, what happens when Democrats run ad after ad targeting GOP voters about Miller abusing the daughter of a pro-Trump mega senator? What does that do to GOP turnout? How does that affect our candidates at the top of the ticket who are already in tough races? And it ends up being a valid concern here

Starting point is 00:14:40 because right now, Miller's reportedly still polling, but only just one percentage point ahead of Poindexter. This is a district that Trump won by double digits in 2024. So that's led to a lot of optimism from Democrats about actually being able to flip this seat blue. But things could still change because Miller still has until August 5th to drop out. Though I will say it doesn't look like that is the situation you're going to get. Because you had Miller going live on Twitter yesterday to deny everything redirecting it,

Starting point is 00:15:02 Emily, as well as saying that he plans on keeping on with his reelection campaign. Every single one of these allegations were already investigated. And I cooperated fully every single time because I had nothing to hide and I have nothing to hide now. This election is just more about winning a seat in November for the Republican Party. This election to me is about my family and about our daughter and keeping our values here and holding the media and other individuals accountable who have been incredibly reckless. I'm not getting out of this race and I'm winning in November and I'll be back in the 120th. And then with all this, as far as point extras take on all this,

Starting point is 00:15:41 he said, if all the allegations against Congressman Miller proved to be true, Max Miller should be in jail, not worried about retaining a seat in Congress. And that was also echoed by the Democratic Women's Caucus who called for an investigation by the House Ethics Committee and said that Congress cannot sweep this under the rug. But for now, we're gonna have to wait to see if that's true and how this whole situation plays out.

Starting point is 00:15:58 But then also, while you've got news like Miller fighting to stay in the public eye despite the backlash against him, you then have other news like Ariana Grande actually taking a step back from public life. And that's reignited this debate connected to, of course, people, you know, they've been commenting on Ariana Grande's body for years now. While she was promoting the wicked movies, when her tour started earlier this year, and just yesterday, you had our team giving a statement to People magazine saying, Ariana will be taking a step back from visibility after she

Starting point is 00:16:19 completes the eternal sunshine tour. She looks forward to finishing the tour and ending it on a high note, both healthily and happily, and then taking a much-deserved break from public-facing work and appearances, which has led to endless ongoing public scrutiny. This tour has been a beautiful experience for her. She loves her fans and has loved every minute of this tour so much. And then with that, she's also pulling out of a West End Revival of Sunday in the Park with George, which, was a highly anticipated production that many thought would further her theater career. And while their team, they didn't go into specifics or, you know, talk about what the public scrutiny impacting her is. Everyone has kind of collectively filled in the blank. And so that is

Starting point is 00:16:49 kind of what a big chunk of the conversation has been about her online, which is also kind of wild because her new album pedal actually just came out on Friday. The music video for the title track also came out too, and with that, you had some expressing genuine concern and other harsh criticism over her weight in it. With, for example, BuzzFeed, putting out a piece, claiming the shots in the video appeared deliberately composed to draw attention to and emphasize her thinness in a way that can be reasonably viewed as glamorizing it. It also had a lot of people reading into the premise of the video, which shows Ariana in an old Hollywood casting call, continuously changing her image as a panel of men in suits, reject her over and over. In some scenes,

Starting point is 00:17:19 they cite her appearance, saying she needs work done or needs to lose a few pounds. And at one point, they tell her they miss the old version of her and ask if she has a personality disorder. And it then ends with her attacking these men with a chainsaw, which kind of fits with other themes in the album exploring anger with the press, the media, and maybe even her fans. And so then with that, you had comments on the video popping up saying things like, it's not about wanting the old Ariana back, it's about wanting her to be healthy and saying, I genuinely wish her wellness,

Starting point is 00:17:41 praying her close friends and family are being there for her. Of course, we only know what we see, but it is sad nonetheless. And then, of course, there are also comments that are less sympathetic, ones that are more making this a spectacle and scandal out of it, which is then where you have a lot of this story getting complicated for people,

Starting point is 00:17:54 because there is a very, very, I will say, fine line between concern and compassion versus cruelty and condemnation. So some writing things like the truth is, we don't know what's going on with Ariana. on it. That's her personal business. But we can and need to comment on this as it relates to the image of a pop star that young girls are going to see and try to emulate. But then also, you're seeing things like one clinical psychologist writing a piece for the conversation explaining. Many people defend comments about a celebrity's appearance by saying they're simply expressing concern. But you then have them arguing, arguing, arguing, argument, concern doesn't require thousands of strangers discussing someone's body online. Saying public speculation can become deeply personal, intrusive, and impossible to escape. Arguing research shows stigma surrounding eating disorders remains a major barrier to seeking help. Many people delay treatment because of shame, fear of judgment, and misconcently. about what an eating disorder looks like. So public conversations that repeatedly evaluate people's bodies may Invertently reinforce exactly the problems we hope to prevent and then interestingly at another psychiatrist telling USA today that when it comes to these kinds of discussions where the person at the center is just so

Starting point is 00:18:47 Visible that the best thing to do is to not talk about them directly, but talk about the issue at large And instead of asking whether a specific person looks too thin we can talk about the broader patterns we're seeing that rapid rise and the visibility of medications like GLP ones and the messages they send when used outside of current clinical guidelines and saying when the focus stays on individual bodies, even with good intentions, it can quickly become toxic and harmful. But again, it ends up being tricky for a lot of people because in publishing these pieces, the people behind them are still in fact, in some way, talking about Ariana Grande. And then it's also worth noting that while many articles exploring how this should be discussed naturally bring up eating disorders, there is no public knowledge about what Ariana is or is not suffering from. Right, and I'm

Starting point is 00:19:24 not bringing that up to suggest that she is, but it has become a part of this very sensitive conversation. But ultimately, that's where we are and, you know, I do end up having to past question off to you of what are your thoughts on this? I feel like this topic comes up at least once or twice a year, whether it be with Ariana Grande specifically or kind of whoever one of the stars is at the time. Rip with them from that for your final block, as I like to try to do on this show, we've got more news you need to know that I'm going to try and cram in before you go. First up, you've got Trump's so-called anti-weaponization fund now dead and gone, at least for now, though that's also not even the end of the story. Right, because you, Todd Blanche, announcing this

Starting point is 00:19:55 formal order yesterday just in time for his confirmation tomorrow saying, the fund is not operative, If no funds were transferred, no process for receiving claims was established, no claims were paid. This order establishes beyond any doubt that there is no fund. Because while Blanche, he said back in June that they were letting it go after all the backlash they got from people on both sides of the aisle, it's Senate Republicans John Cornyn and Tom Tillis saying, hey, we want that in writing and so they put his confirmation on hold last week. And that might have been a smart play because Trump, he was apparently still holding on hope to keep it. Even this weekend, you had him claiming that if Cornyn and Tillis kept blocking Blanche's confirmation, he just keep him on as acting

Starting point is 00:20:26 AG and keep pushing to get the fund pass, saying it'll immediately be back on the table and I will get it done. But then to that, you Attila saying, President Trump clearly intends to resurrect the payout pot for punks, which I guess is his word for January 6 rioters, and saying it's unfortunate that Todd Blanche, who I consider qualified for the job, will not be confirmed because of this reversal. Hopefully, we can resolve this by Tuesday. So while it looks like, you know, yesterday's order cleared things up there, you also had Cornyn and Tillis having concerns about Trump's tax immunity with the IRS. They wanted to make sure that it wasn't some get-out-of-jail-free card that he could use for any tax investigations in the future. And so Blanche, she threw in a blurb in the order to clear that up as well.

Starting point is 00:20:57 But that is just for the future, right? This keeps up the part of the deal that saving Trump's something like $600 million. So apparently that part, all well and good with Cornyn and Tillis, who made a joint statement this morning saying that their concerns had been addressed. And so it looks like the confirmations on. But that said, in other news, it might not be all good news for Trump scoons. Because you now have been firing a Janine Piro of all people for saying what we've all been thinking. The issue with a reflecting pool isn't random vandals with box cutters. It's just a botched renovation job. Because you have her office dropping the charges against former Olympian David Hearn, who they said damage the pool earlier this summer. And actually now you have them saying that the damage is because contractors rushed to get the job done in time for the 250 celebration events that were going on in D.C. last month.

Starting point is 00:21:33 With Piero saying, given all this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the reflecting pool to vandalism. You even had her turning it on the interior department saying they gave less than fulsome information about the case from the start. And doubting if they were forthcoming with the information clearly in their possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment. And this is just such an interesting turn of events coming from someone who said that she had tremendous evidence when she announced the case in the first place. But then as far as Trump, he crashed out on truth social. Saying, I disagree 100% with Janine Piro. It was a pure case of vandalism, all caps. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by vandals.

Starting point is 00:22:07 With him even posting a video of people at the pool saying, look for yourselves. The material is being cut with a knife or a box cutter for all to see. You've had most people saying we really can't see what's going on there. So it doesn't really seem that that helped his point at all. Then with all that, you've got people turning to the contractors and government officials involved here, right, saying they deserve to be investigated for lying to a federal grand jury about all this and others even saying that everyone involved should go to prison. And so now you also have people wondering if this could be the end of the road for Piro,

Starting point is 00:22:29 because you've seen what happens when Trump's minions let him down. But for now, it looks like that has yet to be determined. And personally, all I got to say is, wow, this is definitely the first case of Trump working with contractors that did not end well. Then in other news, you're currently watching one of the worst crypto disasters in recent memory unfolds in real time. And it is targeting the one group of people who actually did everything right, because hackers have managed to breach Coldcard and drain almost $100 million from over 1,200 Bitcoin addresses in about 41 minutes. And this is a just massive deal because Cold Card was supposed to be the gold standard offline hard wallet, and so now you have people wanting answers. Right,

Starting point is 00:23:02 because a hack of this magnitude, it raises a lot of questions. I mean, this is an offline wallet, meaning it is not connected to the internet at all, and therefore it's supposed to be extremely secure. So how did the hackers manage to get the keys from these wallets? And while a security advisory from Block revealed that there was a massive coding mistake in certain Cold Card firmware versions. And so this made is that the wallet generated recovery frame. were predictable and so the attackers didn't need physical access to your device. They literally mapped out the keys and emptied the vaults remotely. And the real salt and the wound for people who use Coin Kite's wallet, updating your firmware or moving the Bitcoin to another wallet will

Starting point is 00:23:32 not save your funds if your seed phrase was created on affected software. Weakness stays attached to that recovery phrase. Where you can think of it like a password, updating your computer, it won't matter if hackers still know your unupdated password. And so you've got users being urged to make a brand new recovery phrase after updating or risk all your Bitcoin. And while you had Coin Kite's CEO, Rodolfo Novak issuing a public apology saying he's devastated and taking full accountability, uh, it is not as full as a lot of users would want. Because in his statement, you had him saying that the company would release a full technical report over how this happened and help users to pursue police reports, insurance claims, or their own

Starting point is 00:24:02 investigations. But getting your money back from the people you trusted, apparently that's a bridge too far. And then also notably, they blamed AI, claiming that AI-assisted code review can find bugs and code that would take humans forever to figure out. And while they're not alone, this has been a growing trend and it's raised a lot of red flags about security and essentially every coded system. So you've got the sphere out there that this could be the new normal for a while. And then last step of the news today, New York just filed a $36 billion lawsuit against Cali because New York AG Latisha James said that they're running an illegal gambling operation. And that 36 billion? That's how much you have her claiming that they've made from sports gambling

Starting point is 00:24:33 times three, a $100,000 fine for each time they offered it without a license, plus restitution for people who've placed bets on the platform. But now you have Cali she speaking out saying it's sad to see this type of political theater from the leadership in our own state, saying states can't just shut down a federally licensed exchange. We love New York, we love New Yorkers, and New Yorkers love our product. But truthfully, what you're saying is that New York is just the latest in all of their legal battles across the country. Or because you've got this tug of war going on with Kalshi in the middle

Starting point is 00:24:58 where states are saying that the federal government is stepping on their rights with prediction market regulation. And it does appear ironic because, as reports have noted, the federal government originally wanted to prevent states from offering sports betting, which the Supreme Court said was overreaching. And now they could be overreaching by allowing it. And you've got people from federal agencies like the Commodity Futures Trading Commission saying, rather than seek reasoned answers from the courts,

Starting point is 00:25:16 letitia James and New York seek to force an unprecedented sudden shutdown on a prediction markets nationwide. The CFTC has already sued to stop this and will continue to defend its jurisdiction. But then you also have a ton of people rooting for states like New York saying this lawsuit is important and necessary action to uphold the rule of law, protect consumers,

Starting point is 00:25:31 and defend the nearly 70,000 New York jobs supported by the legal gaming industry. So what you should expect is that this is probably all gonna land with the Supreme Court sooner or later. And while that my friend, you beautiful bastard is the end of your Monday show. I got two things to end on. And that is one, if you wanna snag

Starting point is 00:25:45 this emotionally exhausted shirt, which we just dropped, you can go to beautifulbastard.com. And two, I also put out a bonus deep die video this morning on this whole NVIDIA scandal that's really fascinating in my opinion. And so I'll include links you can click or tap in the usual spaces on screen in the description. But with all that said, my name is Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in.

Starting point is 00:26:03 I love yo faces. And I'll see you right back here tomorrow.

The Philip DeFranco Show - The Flock Cameras Problem Is Getting Worse

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