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A federal judge in Oklahoma has dealt a significant blow to automated license plate surveillance. The court ruled that a police officer violated the Fourth Amendment when he ran a woman's plate through Flock's reader system simply because it was from California, then used her travel history to justify searching her car. It's one of the first federal rulings to call this kind of database querying indiscriminate mass surveillance — and it could reshape how law enforcement uses these systems nationwide.
Shifting to privacy of a different kind, Ethereum has launched a tool called zkAPI that lets users pay for AI queries using the stablecoin USDC, while cryptographic proofs ensure no single party can connect both who you are and what you're asking. It's an intriguing collision of blockchain and artificial intelligence, built around the idea that your questions deserve the same protection as your identity.
And in the category of stories that feel like they belong in a Tom Clancy novel, a Lockheed SR-seventy-one Blackbird has quietly disappeared from its outdoor display pole at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center. Satellite imagery confirmed it was gone by mid-May of two thousand twenty six, and NASA reportedly reached out to retired engineers for help flying it again. No official explanation yet.
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