A Flock Safety license-plate reader. Photo: Bruxton / Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

On May 10, a Tulsa County deputy spotted a rental SUV on I-44. Before observing a traffic violation, he checked its travel history through two license-plate tracking systems, Flock and VehicleManager, which collect sightings with dates and locations. He could access a month of the vehicle’s movements, with more than 50 sightings across several states. A quick trip west and back caught his attention. The ensuing stop and search turned up roughly 90 pounds of suspected methamphetamine, according to prosecutors.

Last Thursday, a federal judge in Oklahoma suppressed the evidence. The judge upheld the initial traffic stop but found the deputy lacked reasonable suspicion to prolong it for a dog sniff. The judge separately ruled that the warrantless search of the vehicle’s travel history violated the Fourth Amendment. Prosecutors argued that vehicle movements are visible in public. The judge emphasized the reach of accumulated location records, calling the system “indiscriminate mass surveillance.” The judge acknowledged that most courts addressing ALPR use have allowed it; neither the Supreme Court nor the Tenth Circuit had resolved the question.

Chatbots

AI apps, including Claude, on a smartphone. Photo: Solen Feyissa / Unsplash.

A Florida woman was arrested after alleged threats in her conversations with Claude reached police. Investigators say Carli Michelle Heller, 30, threatened to shoot up the Lee County Sheriff’s Office and later said she had obtained a gun. Her messages were flagged for human review, and the review team notified law enforcement. She faces a charge of written threats of violence. Anthropic’s privacy policy allows designated safety staff to review consumer conversations when needed to enforce its rules. Its disclosure policy also permits sharing user information without ordinary legal process when the company believes doing so may avert imminent physical harm or death.

In Other News

A court in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, will require an AI-use affidavit with every filing, even when no AI was used. (Pennsylvania Bulletin)

An accurate facial-recognition match led police to the wrong suspect in Jacksonville. (The Florida Trib)

A pilot program in eastern England lets victims report crimes through AI. (National Police Chiefs’ Council)

Lakeland, Florida, approved a $21.9 million police contract that includes AI report writing and drones. (The Ledger)

A German company released an open-weight AI model aimed at governments that want to run AI on their own systems. (Aleph Alpha)

The U.S. administration created a new AI task force called the “Super Intelligence Force.” (AP)

The U.S. government's central purchasing body is tightening rules on AI vendors' use of its data. (GSA)

New Mexico's attorney general wants new legislation to make AI safety promises legally enforceable. (New Mexico Department of Justice)

Minnesota won’t be able to enforce its novel AI “nudification” law against xAI for now. (Eighth Circuit)

OpenAI says it is spending more than $500,000 a day to review its own models’ unauthorized activity. (OpenAI)

The U.S. Department of Transportation plans to use AI to sort airline complaints and speed responses to public-records requests. (Technology Modernization Fund)

Norway plans to ban AI glasses in some public places as it develops permanent rules for the technology. (Norwegian government)

The IRS is missing records of some risk assessments and data-quality checks for AI systems, a federal audit says. (Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration)

A federal judge dismissed publishers’ antitrust claims over Google’s AI summaries. (U.S. District Court, D.C.)

OpenAI followed Anthropic in announcing invisible text watermarks. (OpenAI, Anthropic)

Apple plans to lock down access to Mac users’ data as AI gets more powerful. (Apple)

Nvidia announced a new version of its DGX Spark AI computer with half the memory and a higher starting price. (Tom’s Hardware)

A former OpenAI safety staffer says AI companies need the safeguards used in aviation and nuclear power. (The Atlantic)

Micro Center reportedly required a customer buying a PC with an Nvidia graphics card to explain its intended use and promise not to export it. (Tom’s Hardware)

An AI voice sounded like an actor whose recordings were online, which was enough for a Chinese court to shift the burden to the company to explain its training data. (China IP Law Update)