A nonprofit newsroom. Reader supported since 2022.

The Overseen

Investigating surveillance, data and automated systems, and the people on the other end of them.

Threat actors

Hello from New York. This week Daniel Vreeland reported that a public safety agency’s Murmur dashboards listed protest organizers, volunteers and legal observers under a heading called “Threat actors.” One organizer learned she had been watched when we called her. Tellwright, which sells Murmur, published a statement the next day calling the story inaccurate; we have added it to the story and stand by our reporting.

Also this week: a reader in Ohio asked whether her town’s license plate cameras answer lookups from other states, after our Kerbside story last fall. The answer is in the town’s Kerbside dashboard, and her council can ask for it. Several have.

Thank you to the 214 readers who became members in May.

Maya Ekholm, audience and newsletters editor

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