A California judge ordered the end of a dragnet law enforcement program that surveilled the electrical smart meter data of thousands of Sacramento residents. The Sacramento County Superior Court ruled that the surveillance program run by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and police violated a state privacy statute, which bars the disclosure of residents’ electrical usage data with narrow exceptions. For more than a decade, SMUD coordinated with the Sacramento Police Department and other law enforcement agencies to sift through the granular smart meter data of residents without suspicion to find evidence of cannabis growing. EFF and its co-counsel represent three petitioners in the case: the Asian American Liberation Network, Khurshid Khoja, and Alfonso Nguyen. They argued that the program created a host of privacy harms—including criminalizing innocent people, creating menacing encounters with law enforcement, and disproportionately harming the Asian community. The court ruled that the challenged surveillance program was not part of any traditional law enforcement investigation. Investigations happen when police try to solve particular crimes and identify particular suspects. The dragnet that turned all 650,000 SMUD customers into suspects was not an investigation. “[T]he process of making regular requests for all customer information in numerous city zip codes, in the hopes of identifying evidence that could possibly be evidence of illegal activity, without any report or other evidence to suggest that such a crime may have occurred, is not an ongoing investigation,” the court ruled, finding that SMUD violated its “obligations of confidentiality” under a data privacy statute. Granular electrical usage data can reveal intimate details inside the home—including when you go to sleep, when you take a shower, when you are away, and other personal habits and demographics. The dragnet turned 650,000 SMUD customers into suspects. In creating and running the dragnet surveillance program, according to the court, SMUD and police “developed a relationship beyond that of utility provider and law enforcement.” Multiple times a year, the police asked SMUD to search its entire database of 650,000 customers to identify people who used a large amount of monthly electricity and to analyze granular 1-hour electrical usage data to identify residents with certain electricity “consumption patterns.” SMUD passed on more than 33,000 tips about supposedly “high” usage households to police. While this is a victory, the Court unfortunately dismissed an alternate claim that the program violated the California Constitution’s search and seizure clause. We disagree with the court’s reasoning, which misapprehends the crux of the problem: At the behest of law enforcement, SMUD searches granular smart meter data and provides insights to law enforcement based on that granular data. Going forward, public utilities throughout California should understand that they cannot disclose customers’ electricity data to law enforcement without any “evidence to support a suspicion” that a particular crime occurred. EFF, along with Monty Agarwal of the law firm Vallejo, Antolin, Agarwal, Kanter LLP, brought and argued the case on behalf of Petitioners. Related Cases: Asian American Liberation Network v. SMUD, et al.

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Despite being accredited and accepted as journalists for the United Nations’ (UN) COP30 climate summit in Belem, Brazil, Rebel News, a Canadian climate skeptic outlet, was refused entry upon arrival, explains Rebel’s editor-in-chief Sheila Gunn Reid to The New American’s Alex Newman. The setback highlights the UN’s reluctance to tolerate any opposing viewpoint, as the …

Better safe than sorry. Marcus King has long been open about his struggles not only with his mental health, but with drugs and alcohol. He made the decision to get sober back in 2021, not long after he met his now-wife Briley, and has credited her in the past with keeping him on track. The standout guitar player and southern rock singer met his future wife back in 2021 at one of his concerts, and as Marcus recalled: “She waltzed up on my bus like she owned it, and I was taken with her sweet southern drawl. She asked to connect to the Bluetooth, blared Linda Ronstadt and Aretha Franklin and we sang and danced till it was time for the bus to leave. I told her the next morning to quit her job and marry me instead.” But apparently she wasn’t ready to go all in just yet. During a recent appearance on the Zach Sang Show podcast, Marcus recalled that first date with Briley (whose maiden name is Briley Hussey), and says that although he did get a kiss out of it, she had some conditions before it could go any farther. “She gave me a nice smooch the first night we met. She couldn’t resist my charms all the way. But she was like, ‘Hell no, I don’t know where the hell that thing’s been.’ She’s like, ‘You need to go get checked out.'” I mean, smart move, regardless of who you’re sleeping with. Well Marcus did in fact go get an STD test (that’s how you know he was serious about this girl, am I right?) and sent the proof to Briley: “I went and I got checked out, and I was like, ‘You guys call me and leave me a voicemail that says all is well.’  And so they did that and I sent her the voicemail. I was like, ‘I’m good to go.'” Clearly it all worked out for them. Marcus and Briley were married in 2023 in a ceremony at the Schermerhorn Symphony here in Nashville that was officiated by country legend Jamey Johnson. And Marcus credits his wife’s “tough love” approach with helping him stay on track: “I get really depressed when I’m not around her. It’s different than any relationship I’ve ever had… I like somebody that’s like, ‘No, you need to get up and do some s–t for yourself.’ Cause I need that kind of tough love. The parts that are broken in me are not going to be fixed with any form of coddling… Everybody that came in tried to help me from a very honest and genuine place, but it was always too soft and it always allowed me to get back off the rails. This is the first woman that I’ve ever been with that was like, ‘Hell no.'” Over the past few months, Briley has really started to break out as an artist herself, with her cover of “The Night the Lights Went Out In Georgia” going so viral on social media that she dropped her own studio version of the song, featuring her husband and Ella Langley. She’s joined her husband on stage a number of times in the past as well, showcasing her incredible talent on songs like Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.” The post Marcus King Says His Wife Briley Made Him Get An STD Test After Their First Date: “Don’t Know Where That Thing’s Been” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.