As always, the cops are showing up to parties as the uninvited and unwelcome guests, lingering and leering in the corner, spoiling things for everyone.
The New York City police department announced its plans to pilot unmanned aircrafts (aka drones) in response to complaints about large gatherings, including private events, over Labor Day weekend. Of course their plan drew immediate outcry from privacy and civil liberties advocates, and also ordinary citizens who don’t want to be constantly surveilled. If you’re wondering when law enforcement took on such a futuristic and threatening role, it’s really unfolding as we speak.
Like many other cities, New York is increasingly relying on drones for policing purposes. Data maintained by the city indicates that the police department used drones for “public safety or emergency purposes” 124 times this year, up from just four times in all of 2022. Mayor Eric Adams, who cosplays as a turtle in his free time, has openly said he wants to see police further embrace the “endless” potential of drones, citing apartheid Israel’s use of the technology as a blueprint after visiting the colonizers last week. If there’s a bingo card of bad ideas, that man Eric Adams has got to be filling it up every single day.
Side Items
Fear & Suspicion in Egypt: This article on Egypt’s disastrous political leadership features analysis of why their strategy of ruling by fear will never work. There is a large, growing, and increasingly noticeable divergence between what the government promises Egyptians and how people experience everyday life. When anyone has the audacity to point this out, they are branded as supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood or, in the case of a large number of Egyptians, subjected to imprisonment, physical abuse, or disappearance. This ferocious response is a measure of how much Sisi and his supporters know and fear that there are many Egyptians who recognize this gap and its potentially destabilizing nature
Prison King: This New Yorker article tells the story of one of the largest heists ever pulled off from inside an American prison. Arthur Lee Cofield Jr. impersonated billionaires using smuggled cell phones and a few accomplices on the outside, stealing millions of dollars from large bank accounts and buying houses, cars, clothes, and gold. I can’t say I support the illegality of it, but you’ve gotta respect the hustle
YouTube Parenting Advice: A woman in Utah who gave parenting advice on YouTube via a once-popular channel has been arrested on suspicion of aggravated child abuse after her malnourished son escaped out a window and ran to a nearby house for help. Lots going on in that sentence. Ruby Franke, whose now overlooked channel “8 Passengers” followed her family and their misadventures, was arrested on Wednesday night in the southern Utah city of Ivins. In my opinion, her crimes are much worse than a man in prison pretending to be a wealthy guy on the outside