Flock around and lose your rights



Few surveillance products have ever been named more appropriately than Flock. A flock of sheep has no rights. It exists to be watched, counted, and managed by whoever owns the field. That increasingly resembles how government treats Americans as officials cover streets and neighborhoods with cameras under the familiar but false promise of public safety.

Flock’s automated license-plate readers are not ordinary security cameras. They record every passing vehicle, capturing plate numbers, makes, colors, damage, bumper stickers, and other identifiers. Those records enter a private cloud that participating local and federal agencies can search across a network of more than 116,000 devices.

Swapping freedom for security rarely delivers either. A government that refuses to control criminals should not receive limitless power to track everyone else.

The system can reveal patterns of life: who visits a church, clinic, protest, political meeting, or friend’s home. It can do so without individualized suspicion and often without a warrant.

Tracking plates means tracking people across time and space. These cameras do not sit only along highways. They appear in residential neighborhoods and on local streets. InvestigateTV demonstrated how Flock’s Condor cameras can move and follow an individual within view.

When asked whether he envisioned “a future with a Flock camera on every street corner,” Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley said yes. He described an America where crime no longer exists.

The sales pitch is always safety. The practical result is a searchable record of ordinary people’s movements.

Local media in Windsor, Connecticut, reported that a resident’s public records request revealed more than 500,000 third-party searches of camera data in nine weeks. Officials may insist that systems like Flock exist only to recover stolen vehicles or locate dangerous suspects. A database this valuable will inevitably attract more agencies, more vendors, and more uses.

Government surveillance programs always begin with sympathetic cases: stolen cars, missing children, wandering dementia patients, and violent fugitives. Those benefits are real. They do not answer the central question. Should every citizen become continuously searchable because the technology sometimes helps police solve a crime?

After the COVID era, Americans have no excuse for assuming that every agency will use sweeping powers narrowly. Officials used emergency authorities, corporate data, and private platforms in ways the public was repeatedly assured would never happen. A permanent vehicle-tracking network deserves more skepticism, not less.

Flock’s defenders also evade the real cause of persistent crime. Police rarely lack the ability to identify repeat juvenile carjackers and other violent offenders. The deeper failure lies in prosecutors, judges, legislators, and “criminal justice reform” policies that return dangerous offenders to the street.

The Baltimore region illustrates the contradiction. Flock cameras dot the area, yet juvenile carjackings remain rampant because offenders often face little meaningful punishment. Cameras may help identify the same criminal again. They cannot supply the deterrence that prosecutors and courts refuse to impose.

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Blaze Media Illustration

We already know how to reduce violent crime: incapacitate repeat offenders and impose sentences severe enough to deter others. Government instead weakens punishment, tolerates disorder, and then asks the public to surrender more privacy to manage the consequences.

Resistance to automated plate readers is growing across liberal and conservative communities. Residents have vandalized or dismantled cameras, while local officials have voted to ban or remove them. In conservative counties, however, sheriffs often become the greatest obstacle to reform because state and federal grants subsidize the equipment and stretch cash-starved departmental budgets.

Programs such as the Homeland Security Grant Program, State Homeland Security Program, Urban Areas Security Initiative, Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, and COPS Office Technology and Equipment Program can finance systems that local departments could not otherwise afford. Counterterrorism and infrastructure protection become convenient justifications for constructing a domestic surveillance network.

The incentives are understandable. Sheriffs cannot control soft prosecutors, lenient judges, or lawmakers who empty jails. They can control front-end policing, and grants let them expand their technological reach. But frustration with failed criminal-justice policy does not justify treating every driver as a suspect.

RELATED: We’re winning the fight against Flock — but the surveillance isn't going away that easily

Cindy Schultz/Washington Post/Getty Images

Nor should Americans assume that every officer with access will behave honorably. More than 20 documented cases of police misuse have surfaced since 2023. Officers have reportedly used the system to stalk romantic partners and rivals. One Idaho officer searched his wife’s movements more than 700 times, labeling the queries “test” to avoid suspicion.

That abuse is not an aberration from the system’s purpose. It is the predictable result of giving thousands of people effortless access to intimate location data with weak oversight.

Flock presents Americans with a false choice between crime and constant surveillance. We can enforce the law, incapacitate violent offenders, and protect communities without allowing government to reconstruct every citizen’s daily movements.

The answer to failed policing is better policing. The answer to lenient prosecution is accountability. The answer to repeat offenders is punishment. None requires a camera on every corner or a permanent cloud archive of where every American has been.

Swapping freedom for security rarely delivers either. A government that refuses to control criminals should not receive limitless power to track everyone else.

A Memphis mom was fired for telling the truth about crime; now she's fighting back



There was a time when the most effective weapon against crime in American cities was a badge and a gun. Today, it’s a boring old spreadsheet.

In Memphis, a city long defined by bruising battles with violent crime, the local political establishment has discovered something it fears far more than gunfire: public transparency.

For the first time in six years, Ballinger's family members were able to celebrate a birthday in their own back yard.

Dalisia Ballinger understands this threat better than the politicians currently spending taxpayer money to hide the truth.

War zone

A former Memphis news reporter and a mother, Ballinger knows exactly what a stray bullet sounds like when it tears through residential drywall. One sweltering evening, she stood in her living room when three men emerged from the bushes outside and opened fire on the neighboring house. Without hesitation, she grabbed her son and ran to the bedroom.

"My son, who was five at the time, started asking questions like 'why are we on the ground, Mommy?' I just hugged him tight until it was over," Ballinger recalls via email. "It had to have been about 10 gunshots. After it was over, we proceeded back to the living room, where I noticed glass on the floor and looked over into the wall, and there was the bullet hole.”

Directly below it were her son's toys — the place where he played every day. In other words, Ballinger's decision to take her son into the bedroom may have saved his life.

Ballinger eventually moved her family a few miles away, only to find a neighborhood trapped in an identical loop of daily robberies and shootings. The cycle broke when the Memphis Safe Task Force deployed to the area.

'Safe' haven

Launched as a joint federal, state, and local law-enforcement operation, the Memphis Safe Task Force targets violent offenders, illegal firearms, gangs, and fugitives. Supporters credit it with helping drive down violent crime in Memphis, while critics argue its aggressive tactics have raised civil-liberties concerns, pointing to several high-profile encounters — including the fatal shooting of Tyrin Johnson, which remains under investigation.

Ballinger says that for her and her neighbors, the results were immediate and undeniable. The gunfire stopped for weeks on end. For the first time in six years, Ballinger's family members were able to celebrate a birthday in their own back yard.

It was then that Ballinger committed the ultimate sin of modern journalism. She actually reported what she saw. She stated publicly that violent crime had dropped in her neighborhood because of the task force. For the crime of committing firsthand journalism that disrupted a preferred political narrative, her network promptly fired her.

Questioning the narrative

Her termination illustrates a broader problem in contemporary newsrooms, where maintaining the approved narrative increasingly appears to be a prerequisite for keeping a job. Disagreement used to spark editorial debate; today, it can end careers. The establishment appears deeply terrified of what happens when citizens lay eyes on verifiable data.

"I don't think anyone should be afraid of transparency," Ballinger tells me. "If we're making decisions that affect the safety of our neighborhoods, then the public deserves to know what's happening and whether those efforts are producing results."

That principle now sits at the center of a political and legal fight in Memphis.

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The Washington Post/Getty Images

Unfair target?

In May, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R) signed the Memphis Safe Task Force Accountability Act (S.B. 1467) into law.

Far from policing the task force itself, the legislation shines a light on what happens after the task force's work is finished. It requires prosecutors — not police — to publicly report when serious task-force cases are reduced, dismissed, or otherwise abandoned. Supporters argue that if the task force is delivering dangerous offenders to the courthouse, the public deserves to know what becomes of those cases.

Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy disagrees. In a lawsuit challenging the law, he argues that the act unfairly targets his office, infringes on the constitutional independence of locally elected prosecutors, and imposes reporting requirements. According to Mulroy, complying with the law would divert resources away from prosecuting crime while requiring reports on information prosecutors already disclose through existing channels.

To Ballinger, the law simply asks government to show the public how one of its most important public safety initiatives is performing.

A well-functioning bureaucracy relies on data to demonstrate its effectiveness. A bureaucracy that seeks to lock its files away sends a different message entirely. When government officials fight public disclosure, they inevitably invite questions about what, exactly, they fear the public might discover.

"When information is readily available, citizens don't have to rely on rumors, political spin, or competing narratives," Ballinger notes. "They can look at the information themselves, ask informed questions, and hold public officials accountable."

Putting public safety first

A growing coalition of residents refuse to allow the DA to litigate Memphis back into the dark. Ballinger is championing a Change.org petition demanding that Mulroy withdraw his lawsuit and allow the transparency law to stand. The petition is gaining momentum because it treats public safety as something larger than a jurisdictional dispute or partisan fight.

The political class views the Memphis Safe Task Force through the lens of institutional power and jurisdictional turf wars. For mothers on the ground, the reality is much simpler. It is the difference between a child growing up in safety and a child who never gets the chance to grow up at all.

"Facts shouldn't belong to one political party or another; they belong to the people," Ballinger says. "To me, transparency isn't about helping law enforcement, prosecutors, or politicians. It's about respecting the public."

Memphis residents deserve a justice system that operates openly rather than behind closed doors. If the DA's office believes its approach produces better outcomes than the task force, the numbers should be its strongest ally. If it is fighting to keep those numbers out of public view, skepticism is inevitable. The families of Memphis should not have to pay the price for that uncertainty with their safety.

Trump's FCC is finally clearing the path for landline upgrades



Most Americans today use modern, IP-based communications networks. However, 2% of Americans (about seven million people) still depend on legacy copper telephone systems. These networks are increasingly expensive to maintain, inefficient to operate, and vulnerable to both physical degradation and criminal exploitation.

Retiring these outdated systems and replacing them with fiber, wireless and satellite alternatives would be an easy win for consumers and providers alike, and it is something carriers have been trying to do for more than a decade. However, as is so often the case, progress was blocked by bureaucracy.

The copper-based 911 emergency system was built for an era of voice-only communication and fixed locations.

However, that era appears to be at an end thanks to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, who advanced a framework that gives carriers a clear path to retire copper networks responsibly while protecting consumers during the transition.

One of the most visible and frustrating failures of today’s legacy communications system is the explosion of robocalls. Scam and spam calls are the No. 1 consumer complaint to the FCC, with hundreds of thousands of reports filed annually and billions of illegal automated calls disrupting daily life.

These calls are not just minor annoyances, they are one of the major vectors for fraud, identity theft, and psychological manipulation — and they disproportionately target seniors and vulnerable populations.

Unlike legacy copper systems, modern IP-based networks can deploy authentication protocols such as AI-driven filters and network-level call verification. These defenses can stop robocalls and scammers before they reach consumers.

Public safety is another driving force behind modernization. The copper-based 911 emergency system was built for an era of voice-only communication and fixed locations. It is increasingly insufficient for how Americans communicate today.

Next Generation 911 replaces this outdated infrastructure with an IP-based system capable of receiving texts, photos, videos, and precise location data — including vertical “z-axis” positioning in multistory buildings.

NG911 enables faster emergency response, more accurate caller location, and better situational awareness for first responders. It also improves accessibility for hearing- and speech-impaired individuals, ensuring emergency services are truly universal.

The importance of upgrading is further heightened by a rising infrastructure security problem: copper theft. Criminals targeting underground and aerial lines have created a nationwide crisis, costing utilities and communications providers more than $1 billion annually.

Copper theft can knock out 911 service, disrupt broadband access, and leave entire communities without reliable communications. Every stolen segment must be replaced at significant cost to ratepayers and providers, perpetuating a cycle of damage that modern networks largely avoid.

For over a decade, providers have sought permission to retire copper infrastructure and transition fully to modern alternatives. Progress was slowed by a regulatory process that often required lengthy filings, public comment cycles, and unpredictable approval timelines stretching months or even years.

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NTSB/Handout/Xinhua/Getty Images

The FCC’s new modernization framework — advanced under Chairman Carr — changes that approach. Carriers may now proceed with copper retirement provided they give at least 90 days’ notice and ensure continuity of service throughout the transition.

Some critics have warned that retiring copper could disrepute service or lead to increased costs.

But these concerns overlook the fact that Americans already have alternatives at scale — fiber, cable broadband, mobile wireless, and satellite services capable of delivering both voice and data.

Even traditional landline-style handsets can be adapted to IP networks, preserving familiarity for users who prefer it. As for affordability, competition across wireless and broadband markets has expanded significantly, with multiple providers offering low-cost voice and data plans.

Prices are down roughly 6% since the Trump administration’s policy push on spectrum expansion and infrastructure investment during his first term helped unlock additional capacity and competition. At the same time, service quality and speeds have improved, making legacy copper increasingly unnecessary and economically inefficient to maintain.

There is also a major environmental and economic opportunity in retiring copper responsibly. Once decommissioned, copper is recovered through certified processes, such as stripping, granulation, and smelting. It is then reintroduced into manufacturing supply chains for wiring, construction, and industrial applications.

Over time, this recovery stream represents billions of dollars in reusable material value, while reducing illegal theft incentives and ensuring environmentally responsible disposal. The tech transition order positions America for generations to come, and there’s not a moment to lose.

'Bye': Seattle mayor laughs off wealth exodus from her flagging, crime-ridden city



Katie Wilson, the 43-year-old leftist blogger elected mayor of Seattle last year, apparently finds it amusing that deep-pocketed residents and businesses are fleeing her crime-ridden city.

During a recent event at Seattle University, lecturer Joni Balter raised the matter of downtown Seattle's apparent inability to "grow job these days," noting that "the city has lost 25,000 jobs over four years, and the thinking is — the data folks say — that if you extend that out five years, it could be as high as 37,000 jobs."

'We still have the very regressive tax system.'

According to a recent report from the the Downtown Seattle Association, the Emerald City's downtown has seen a 14% decrease in brick-and-mortar retail jobs since 2010 and lost an estimated 13,000 jobs just last year, amounting to the biggest decrease in jobs since the pandemic.

The report noted further that Seattle's downtown office vacancy remained at a post-pandemic high of 25%; the central business district experienced an office vacancy rate of 32% last year, nearly double the previous high point during the Great Recession in 2009; and the combined taxable value of the 20 highest-valued properties in Seattle's downtown has declined from over $10 billion in 2021 to roughly $5.1 billion this year.

When asked about her plan to "turn that around," Wilson — who appeared on stage alongside fellow radical Girmay Zahilay, the newly elected King County executive — attributed Seattle's exodus of jobs and businesses to a number of factors including potential workers' apparent inability to afford living in or near the downtown; homelessness and public safety issues; and the "tax environment."

While apparently interested in tackling the affordability, homelessness, and public safety issues, Wilson signaled that her city's crushing taxes won't soon be changed.

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David Ryder/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Wilson, who co-founded the Transit Riders Union in 2011 and endeavored in years past to "Trump-proof Seattle," was later asked about the "taxing climate" and whether progressive taxes were an "easy and promising solution."

After noting that she found it "very exciting" that state Democrats passed a 9.9% tax on annual taxable income exceeding $1 million for individuals or households and recalling her efforts to push similar taxes in Seattle, Wilson said that claims that wealthy residents will flee the state are "super overblown."

But to those beleaguered residents who have chosen to leave or might do so in the near future, the mayor waved, said, "Bye," and laughed in concert with fellow travelers in the sparsely populated audience.

"In general, we still have the very regressive tax system, and my office is doing a lot of work to look at what our options are in terms of progressive taxation," continued Wilson. "We do have more flexibility at the city than the county, in terms of our taxing authority."

Despite Wilson's casual dismissal, high taxes in Seattle appear to be chasing jobs to cities like Bellevue.

Jon Scholes, president of the Downtown Seattle Association, suggested that Amazon's decision to relocate thousands of employees from Seattle to other King County locations was the direct result of Seattle's overwhelming tax burden, reported the Center Square. Starbucks, which is headquartered in Seattle, also appears to be angling for greener pastures.

Among the taxes the city has implemented is the Social Housing Tax, a 5% levy on employee compensation exceeding $1 million, and the JumpStart Payroll Expense Tax, which the city slapped on companies with employees making more than $150,000 annually.

"What we need is more businesses in Seattle paying taxes," said Scholes. "That's how we strengthen the tax base."

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​Woke city council rips out anti-crime signs because they're 'racist'​



Neighborhood watch programs have long encouraged citizens to take pride in the welfare of their communities and to adopt a proactive approach to crime prevention. While maximizing citizen vigilance and cooperation with lawful authorities has been associated with reductions in crime, some liberals figure such efforts and the corresponding signage to be unnecessarily exclusionary.

After revolting last year against the decades-old program of communal self-defense and surveillance, woke city councilors in Ann Arbor, Michigan, have since blown taxpayer dollars on the removal of all remaining evidence of the city's Neighborhood Crime Watch program.

'Neighborhood watch signs are expressions of exclusion.'

According to the resolution passed by the city council on Dec. 15 directing the removal of over 600 Neighborhood Crime Watch signs in Ann Arbor, "Neighborhood Watch programs emerged in the 1970s during a period of national anxiety about crime and social change" and were "often rooted in assumptions about who did and did not 'belong' in a neighborhood, reinforcing race-based hyper-vigilance and suspicion particularly toward black, brown, and other marginalized residents and visitors."

The resolution claimed that this dynamic in Ann Arbor, a city whose population today is 66.5% non-Hispanic white, "encouraged informal surveillance practices that disproportionately targeted people of color and contributed to patterns of exclusion under the guise of public safety."

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Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor (D). Aaron J. Thornton/Getty Images

The signs that were posted throughout the city not only denoted a supposedly defunct program but anti-crime messages that "do not reflect Ann Arbor's current public safety values or its commitment to nondiscriminatory enforcement, community trust, and safe spaces for all residents and visitors."

Councilwoman Cynthia Harrison said when the resolution passed, "Signs don’t just sit there, they speak. For many people, especially black and brown residents and visitors, those signs have never felt neutral. They signal that unfamiliarity itself is suspicious, that their presence must be justified, that belonging is conditional," reported the Michigan Daily.

Harrison joined Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor (D) and Councilwoman Jen Eyer on April 21 for the ceremonial tear-down of the final Neighborhood Crime Watch sign.

As their virtue-signaling campaign — which cost the city at least $18,000 from its general fund balance — came to a close, the leftist trio recycled the revisionist gobbledygook from their resolution.

"Neighborhood watch signs are expressions of exclusion," said Taylor, reported MLive.com

Eyer stated, "It really hearkens back to a time when public safety was more about surveillance and exclusion of people from communities and trying to look out for anyone who looked different."

After reiterating that the crime-prevention signs do "not align with our values," Harrison stressed that "this is a great day."

The Michigan Daily reported in March 1981 that "rather than quivering behind bolted doors, some Ann Arbor residents favoring stepped-up police protection are taking matters into their own hands."

The Neighborhood Watch program, formally adopted the previous year in the wake of 30-year-old Rebecca Huff's savage murder, "banded together neighbors in one-block sections of the city who look and listen for signs of criminal activity."

"It's more or less socializing and really getting to know your neighbors," an Ann Arbor police detective said at the time. "People watch each other's property, apartment-sit, and know each other's cars. If a strange car is seen in the area, the residents can obtain the license plate number and call us on a special communication hookup."

While Neighborhood Watch is officially no more in Ann Arbor, vigilant residents don't need signs or permission to look after their communities and can always share insights and tips with one another on apps like Citizen and Nextdoor.

According to Neighborhood Scout, the likelihood of becoming a victim of a property crime and a violent crime in the Democrat-run city is 1 in 47 and 1 in 296, respectively.

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Suspect known as Muhi Mohanad Najm allegedly enters Texas elementary school with military gear, firearm



An armed man was able to walk into Zwink Elementary School in Klein, Texas, on Tuesday, according to multiple reports.

Kyle Najm Chris, also known as Muhi Mohanad Najm, 39, was charged with possession of a weapon in a prohibited place after allegedly entering the school property after another visitor reportedly failed to properly secure the door.

The suspect has no known affiliation with the school.

One school employee told investigators that Chris was wearing full green military or tactical law enforcement attire, including a load-bearing vest, a taser, and a holstered firearm.

School and district officials explained in a letter to parents why they were not immediately notified of the incident.

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Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images

"From the moment the individual left the front office, we were actively working with multiple law enforcement agencies to identify and apprehend this individual," they wrote, according to KHOU.

"Sending a public notification during that window could have jeopardized those efforts, tipped off the suspect, and delayed the arrest."

Officials were able to track the suspect through security camera footage, facial recognition, and the Texas Department of Public Safety's Flock license plate database after he left the premises. The suspect reportedly left the school property, got into a blue Dodge Charger, and was later arrested at his home about a half-mile away, KTRK reported.

The suspect has no known affiliation with the school. He was arrested on Wednesday night and booked into the Harris County Jail.

One neighbor was inclined to think that there was a misunderstanding, describing the suspect as a friend and veteran.

"He watches my kid all the time for me. When I was in California and gone for a couple of months, my son would come home, and he would go to the bus stop and walk him home, put him in the house, let him sit in there, he could go across the street and get the neighbor, you know what I mean," the man, identified only as Randy, told KTRK.

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This 9-0 SCOTUS Decision Makes Clear Law Enforcement’s Right To Stop Threats To Public Safety

'It stands to reason that, if police officers are justified in firing at a suspect in order to end a severe threat to public safety, the officers need not stop shooting until the threat has ended,' wrote Justice Alito.

Trump can fix a hidden public safety failure



During President Trump’s first term, he signed the First Step Act — the most comprehensive criminal justice reform bill in decades — into law. He now has a chance to take a “second step” by rightsizing federal supervision of people on probation — an often overlooked public safety gap — with the introduction of the Safer Supervision Act.

I worked with the president and many bipartisan leaders to pass the First Step Act. I have also been on supervision and spend time with law enforcement leaders across the country. The Safe Supervision Act will empower our federal probation officers and judges to devote previous supervision resources to the people most likely to commit more crimes.

The Safer Supervision Act is the smart, responsible way to make our communities safer — and it is a great 'second step' for President Trump.

Currently the federal system for supervised release — the period of monitoring that follows incarceration — is structured in a way that actively undermines this goal. By overwhelming federal probation officers with low-risk individuals, the current system diverts attention and resources away from the true threats.

Due to the sprawling, largely automatic application of supervised release, our federal system currently monitors more than 110,000 individuals. This policy forces federal probation officers to spread their time dangerously thin.

When officers must dedicate precious time and limited resources to tracking individuals who have already demonstrated a low risk of re-offending, they are left with insufficient bandwidth to provide the oversight and intervention required by high-risk, violent offenders.

The bipartisan Safer Supervision Act is a targeted piece of legislation that corrects this dangerous imbalance. It is a genuine public safety bill that has earned the strong endorsement of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, Major Cities Chiefs Association, and the NationalDistrict Attorneys Association, among others. This bill’s promise is simple: More efficient use of law enforcement resources will reduce repeat crimes.

The core mechanism of the act is the restoration of individualized assessment. Under the current system, supervision is imposed in virtually every case. The Safer Supervision Act requires courts to conduct an individualized risk assessment before imposing supervision.

By reserving supervised release for cases that genuinely warrant it, this change moves toward a gold standard of effective supervision endorsed by professional associations such as the American Probation and Parole Association.

The strongest supervision model ensures that intensive supervision and rehabilitation efforts are directed to the highest-risk areas. The bill would allow federal law enforcement to operate as true risk managers, directing resources where they can have the most effect on those who pose the greatest public threat.

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Photo by HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP via Getty Images

The bill helps break the cycle of recidivism by providing a strong incentive for successful rehabilitation. For low-risk individuals who have served their time and demonstrated good conduct, unnecessarily prolonged supervision terms become a counterproductive barrier. They inhibit successful re-entry by making it difficult to find stable employment and housing, which paradoxically increases the likelihood that the individual will re-offend.

The Safer Supervision Act establishes a process for early termination of supervision for individuals who have served half their term (or two-thirds for violent offenses) and have maintained good behavior. By giving people a clear finish line and rewarding sustained compliance, it dramatically increases the incentive for positive life changes. A successfully terminated supervision term means one less individual returning to crime, thereby enhancing the overall safety of their neighborhood.

Finally the act shows intelligence in addressing substance-use violations, treating them as opportunities for intervention rather than instant triggers for renewed incarceration. The bill creates an extremely narrow carve-out, giving judges discretion for minor offenses.

Under current law, mandatory re-imprisonment is required for these minor violations, often derailing successful rehabilitation and costing taxpayers significantly. The Safer Supervision Act empowers judges to prioritize treatment, counseling, and swift rehabilitation over immediate, expensive, and ineffective re-incarceration.

The support for the Safer Supervision Act is the most bipartisan coalition we have seen since the First Step Act. It is endorsed by police chiefs and prosecutors who understand the operational realities of crime and by fiscal conservatives demanding accountability for federal spending.

By adopting this bill, Congress can deliver a modern, evidence-based supervision system that ensures limited resources go to our highest-risk individuals, minimizes government waste, and delivers lasting public safety improvements.

The Safer Supervision Act is the smart, responsible way to make our communities safer — and it is a great “second step” for President Trump.

Trump Scores Major Court Win In Bid To Keep D.C.’s Streets Safe

In a major win for the Trump administration, a federal appellate court agreed on Wednesday that President Trump can deploy the National Guard to Washington, D.C. for the time being. In a unanimous ruling, a three-judge panel for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily froze a preliminary injunction issued last month by Biden-appointed District […]

Illegal drivers, dead Americans — this is what ‘open borders’ really mean



Wherever you’re reading this, your day almost certainly began on an American road. You might have driven your kids to day care, headed to work, or grabbed a coffee. Even cyclists rely on the same system. Those routines rest on one basic assumption: The people operating massive commercial vehicles are trained, vetted, and accountable.

The assumption is disintegrating because the country is still digging out from the chaos of the Biden administration’s border collapse. President Trump is trying to put the pieces back together, but the wreckage didn’t disappear overnight — and we see the consequences on our highways.

America’s highways shouldn’t become another casualty of Washington’s failures. Neither should American workers.

A recent tragedy in Florida makes the point. A 28-year-old man from India made an illegal U-turn on the turnpike and allegedly killed three people. He reportedly entered the United States illegally and still obtained a commercial driver’s license. In California, a 21-year-old — also allegedly in the country illegally — slammed his semi into stopped traffic on Interstate 10, killing three more. Authorities say he crossed the border in 2022 during the peak of the Biden administration’s open-border surge.

These cases aren’t flukes. They reflect a system that stopped taking seriously who gets behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound vehicle.

The incentives run in one direction. The trucking industry faces a driver shortage. Instead of raising wages and restoring what used to be a proud, middle-class profession, too many companies cut corners by hiring illegal labor willing to work for less. That choice endangers families on the highway and robs American truckers of the wages they earned by playing by the rules.

Every illegal driver creates two problems. First, a safety threat to everyone sharing the road. Second, downward pressure on American workers’ earnings. Flood the labor market with illegal labor, and you weaken the people who keep the country moving.

Trucking remains a central pillar of the American economy. Nearly everything in your home arrived on a truck. These jobs once supported families. They now absorb the fallout from policies that ignore the consequences of illegal hiring.

Fixing this requires basic seriousness. That means, at the very least, strict verification, no loopholes, and no more rubber-stamped licenses issued without proof of legal status. And no more pretending that illegal immigration leaves public safety and wages untouched.

RELATED: Truckers push back on driver-shortage ‘myth’ that has led to flood of foreigners in long-haul industry

Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

The country depends on trucking. The system works only when drivers are properly trained, thoroughly vetted, and in the country legally. It fails when policymakers encourage shortcuts and lower standards to satisfy an open-border ideology.

This debate isn’t abstract. It’s about safety. It’s about economic fairness. It’s about recognizing that border policy shapes everyday life — including the safety of your morning commute.

America’s highways shouldn’t become another casualty of Washington’s failures. Neither should American workers. Both deserve leaders willing to enforce the rules that keep this country safe and prosperous.