law enforcement
California police plead for help amid officer shortage as union boss warns of unprecedented riot 'onslaught'
Officers from the Los Angeles Police Department and California Highway Patrol make arrests as rioters continue to create havoc in LA. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital) LOS ANGELES โ As the protests against Los Angeles' immigration raids spread, state law enforcement leaders are sounding the alarm on the dangers facing officers on the front lines of the riots. "I've been around a very long time, and I have seen similar to what we're facing now," Jake Johnson, president of the California Association of Highway Patrolmen (CAHP), told Fox News Digital. "But I've never seen the amount of onslaught." Thousands of protesters descended on Los Angeles in the last two weeks after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers began conducting raids throughout the sanctuary city. The violence included rioters hurling projectiles at law enforcement officers and lighting numerous self-driving electric vehicles on fire.
Ahead of Protests, Waymo Scales Back Robotaxi Service Nationwide
Waymo will temporarily limit robotaxi service in all of its nationwide markets, the company said Friday, as US cities prepare for a wave of protests of federal immigration policies and law enforcement and military crackdowns on demonstrators. The Alphabet subsidiary will stop service in Los Angeles altogether. Waymo spokesperson Sandy Karp confirmed the service pause and adjustments but declined to comment further. There is no indication how long the service changes will last. The adjustments will affect service in San Francisco; Austin, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; and Phoenix, Arizona.
Border state law enforcement to shoot down 'weaponized' drug-smuggling drones
Raul Gastesi speaks with Fox News Digital about a bill moving through the Florida Senate that would give homeowners the right to use "reasonable force" to take down drones infringing on their privacy rights. A newly-minted law allowing Arizona law enforcement officers to shoot down drug-carrying drones along the U.S.-Mexico border has taken effect after sailing through the state's legislature with bipartisan support. HB 2733 was signed into law on April 18 and grants officers the ability to target drones suspected of carrying out illegal activity within 15 miles of the state's international border. "Cartels are increasingly using drones to survey the border to locate [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] officers' locations and to transport illegal drugs from Mexico into our state," state Rep. David Marshall, the bill's sponsor, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Law enforcement tools at [our] disposal will be electronic jamming devices, as well as using shotguns with bird shot to bring down these drones."
Florida Man Enters the Encryption Wars
Just three months into the Trump administration's promised crackdown on immigration to the United States, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement now has a 30 million contract with Palantir to build a "near-real time" surveillance platform called ImmigrationOS that would track information about people self-deporting (electing to leave the US). Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has been sending aggressive emails telling people with temporary legal status to leave the US. It is unclear who has actually been sent the messages, though, given that a number of people who are US-born citizens have reported receiving them. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency briefly seemed poised this week to cancel funding for the critical software vulnerability tracking project known as the CVE Program. CISA eventually came through with the funding, but some members of the CVE Program's governing board are planning to make the project into an independent nonprofit.
Opt out: how to protect your data and privacy if you own a Tesla
Welcome to Opt Out, a semi-regular column in which we help you navigate your online privacy and show you how to say no to surveillance. The last column covered how to protect your phone and data privacy at the US border. If you'd like to skip to a section about a particular tip, click the "Jump to" menu at the top of this article. At the press of a button, your Tesla pulls itself out of parking spot with no one behind the wheel using a feature called Summon. It drives itself on highways using Autopilot. When you arrive at your destination, it can record nearby activity while parked with a feature called Sentry Mode.
Trump tells illegal immigrants to 'self-deport' using CBP Home app in new video
Tech expert Kurt'CyberGuy' Knutsson joins'Fox & Friends' to discuss DHS launching the revamped CBP One app as CBP Home and Elon Musk claiming a cyberattack on X was traced to Ukraine. President Donald Trump will urge illegal immigrants to "self-deport" from the U.S. using a newly announced app from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Axios reported Monday. Trump will send the message in a video set to release on social media platforms this week, calling on illegal immigrants to use the CBP Home app to announce their departure from the country. The DHS unveiled the app earlier this month after removing the Biden-era CBP One app, which was used to allow migrants into the U.S. "People in our country can self-deport the easy way, or they can get deported the hard way, and that's not pleasant," Trump says in the video. "The Biden administration exploited the CBP One app to allow more than 1 million aliens to illegally enter the United States. Now, my administration is launching the CBP Home app to give people in our country illegally an easy way to leave now and self-deport voluntarily," he continues.
New York law would ban civilians from weaponizing robots
Lawmakers in New York have proposed a new bill that would make it illegal to mount weapons to robots or drones. That is of course, unless the people operating those weaponized machines happen to work with law enforcement or the military. If passed, the Responsible Robotics Act would make New York the first state to ban weaponized robots for civilians, at a time when government spending on autonomous and semi-autonomous police technology is on the rise. The bill specifically bans the sale, transfer, modification, operation, or equipping of robots or drones with mounted weapons. Prohibited weapons include firearms, stun guns, chemical agents, lasers, and explosives.
Crypto giant Tether CEO on cooperating with Trump administration: 'We've never been shady'
Paolo Ardoino, CEO of the cryptocurrency company Tether, was flying over Switzerland last week as he contemplated the changing regulatory landscape. Tether used to be at war with the establishment. Now it is the establishment. The crypto giant โ tether is the most traded cryptocurrency in the world โ has had a strange trip. Four years ago, banks were dropping Tether as a client, and regulators in New York had the company against the wall over questions about commingled client and corporate funds.
How to seek an abortion while protecting your digital privacy
Under the new Trump administration, the ability to access medically factual information on abortions online is more difficult and risky than ever. Among other pages, the administration has taken down reproductiverights.gov, a 2022 Biden administration website aimed at increasing public awareness around reproductive health services. The withdrawal of funding from the World Health Organization, which launched an app with up-to-date, evidence-based information on comprehensive abortion care for healthcare providers, further threatens digital access to accurate medical information not just in the U.S. but across the globe. Furthermore, a report by reproductive rights organization If/When/How cites an increase in recent years of criminalization using surveillance data from menstrual cycle-tracking apps, cell phone location, and reverse keyword searches, a trend that will likely increase in coming years. "It is absolutely unconscionable that we live in a country where people are increasingly worried about seeking factual health information," the national director of product innovation at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Ambreen Molitor, tells Mashable. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to protect your privacy when seeking care or information online.