A large percentage of the population probably needs AI to explain what the word ‘apology’ means.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/world/asia/new-zealand-court-ai-apology.html

In Arson Case, a Judge Wrestles With A.I.-Assisted Apology Letters

A judge in New Zealand who discovered last week that apology letters from a defendant in an arson case had been written with the help of artificial intelligence raised questions about the sincerity of her sentiments.

“The issue of remorse is interesting,” said the judge, Tom Gilbert, of the district court in Christchurch, as he mulled the punishment of a woman who had pleaded guilty to arson and other charges. Remorse can be a mitigating factor in sentencing. Her letters to the victims and the court were nicely written, the judge said. He decided to do some sleuthing.

“Out of curiosity I punched into two A.I. tools ‘draft me a letter for a judge expressing remorse for my offending,’” the judge said, according to a transcript of the sentencing hearing that was shared with The New York Times. “It became immediately apparent that these were two A.I.-generated letters, albeit with tweaks around the edges.”

How to be human.

https://www.bespacific.com/transform-ai-text-into-human-writing/

Transform AI Text Into Human Writing

“Humanize AI text from ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini for free. Make content natural to bypass AI detection and feel truly human. Guaranteed undetectable results.” [Let that sink in.]

• AI Humanizer Eliminates AI Tones for Natural Writing – Directly trim the stiff and repetitive patterns found in machine-generated writing. AI text humanizer converts dry drafts into authentic, natural expressions, adding rhythm and relatability to your work. The refined results flow much better, keeping readers fully engaged in your logic and allowing you to humanize ai so your content gets flagged as bot-written.

• Humanize Text Secures Content for Safe Publishing – Significantly improve the security of your copy across various detection platforms. By restructuring the underlying logic and enhancing expression diversity, our tool helps you bypass ai detectors and avoid sensitive identification by search algorithms. This provides an invisible shield for every submission, protecting your text authority and making your humanize ai free experience simple and worry-free.

• AI Text Humanizer Protects Your Original Intent and Meaning – Maintain your core perspective while restructuring sentence patterns. Humanizer ai accurately identifies and locks in technical terms, factual data, and key arguments, ensuring the rewritten draft is simply more readable without any semantic drift. You get a qualitative leap in flow and tone, allowing you to humanize ai text while keeping your original message perfectly intact…”

I thought Social Security was private. Silly me.

https://pogowasright.org/social-security-workers-are-being-told-to-hand-over-appointment-details-to-ice/

Social Security Workers Are Being Told to Hand Over Appointment Details to ICE

So it’s not only the IRS handing over personal info to ICE.  It’s SSA, too. Zoë Schiffer, Vittoria Elliott, and Leah Feiger report:

Workers at the Social Security Administration have been told to share information about in-person appointments with agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, WIRED has learned.

“If ICE comes in and asks if someone has an upcoming appointment, we will let them know the date and time,” an employee with direct knowledge of the directive says. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

While the majority of appointments with SSA take place over the phone, some appointments still happen in person. This applies to people who are deaf or hard of hearing and need a sign language interpreter, or if someone needs to change their direct deposit information. Noncitizens are also required to appear in person to review continued eligibility of benefits.

Read more at WIRED.

It might also be possible to use this technology on writing. Would the New York Times be interested?

https://asia.nikkei.com/business/technology/artificial-intelligence/sony-group-tech-can-identify-original-music-in-ai-generated-songs

Sony Group tech can identify original music in AI-generated songs

Sony Group has developed a technology that can identify the underlying music used in tunes generated by artificial intelligence, making it possible for songwriters to seek compensation from AI developers if their music was used.

Sony Group's technology analyzes which musicians' songs were used in learning and generating music. It can quantify the contribution of each original work, such as "30% of the music used by the Beatles and 10% by Queen," for example.

If the AI developer agrees to cooperate for the analysis, Sony Group will obtain data by connecting to the developer's base model system. When cooperation is not attainable, the technology estimates the original work by comparing AI-generated music with existing music.

Improving intrusion… (Would this technique work on some redacted files?)

https://pogowasright.org/increasingly-hipaa-cant-stop-ai-from-de-anonymizing-patient-data/

Increasingly, HIPAA Can’t Stop AI from De-Anonymizing Patient Data

Martin Anderson reports:

Even after hospitals strip out names and zip codes, modern AI can sometime still work out who patients are. Great news for insurance companies; not so much for healthcare recipients.

New research from New York University finds that US patients’ medical notes, stripped of names and other HIPAA identifiers, can expose patients to re-identification. By training AI language models on a large corpus of real world, uncensored patient records, identity-defining details remain – in some cases allowing a patient’s neighborhood to be inferred from diagnosis alone.

The new study places this risk in the context of a lucrative market in de-identified health data, where hospitals and data brokers routinely sell or license scrubbed clinical notes to pharmaceutical firms, insurers, and AI developers.

The authors of the new study challenge even the very concept of ‘de-identification’, enshrined in the patient protections established by HIPAA after Massachusetts Governor William Weld has his medical data de-anonymized in 1997….

Read more about the research findings at unite.ai.

Apparently it is Okay to ignore judges…

https://pogowasright.org/courts-have-ruled-4400-times-that-ice-jailed-people-illegally-it-hasnt-stopped/

Courts have ruled 4,400 times that ICE jailed people illegally. It hasn’t stopped.

Nate Raymond, Kristina Cooke, and Brad Heath of Reuters report:

Hundreds of judges around the US have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that President Donald Trump’s administration is detaining immigrants unlawfully, a Reuters review of court records found.

The decisions amount to a sweeping legal rebuke of Mr Trump’s immigration crackdown. Yet the administration has continued jailing people indefinitely even after courts ruled the policy was illegal.

“It is appalling that the Government insists that this Court should redefine or completely disregard the current law as it is clearly written,” US District Judge Thomas Johnston of West Virginia, an appointee of former president George W. Bush, wrote last week, ordering the release of a Venezuelan detainee in the state.

Read more at The Straits Times.

Were these consequences unintentional?

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/all-u-s-social-security-numbers-may-need-to-be-changed-following-a-massive-breach-that-is-already-being-investigated-as-a-national-threat/27158/

All U.S. Social Security numbers may need to be changed following a massive breach that is already being investigated as a national threat

… Borges alleges that a little-known [??? Bob] federal tech team called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, copied the government’s master Social Security database into a cloud system that lacked normal oversight.

… The dataset at issue is not just a list of numbers. A Washington Post ruling summary describes how DOGE team members were given access to databases containing Social Security numbers, medical and mental health records, bank and credit card information, tax details, work histories, and home addresses for millions of Americans.

A MarketWatch summary shared by reporter Angela Moore adds that the records tied to those numbers also include names, places and dates of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, phone numbers, and even parents’ names and Social Security numbers.

Resistance is futile…

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/dhs-anti-ice-social-media.html?unlocked_article_code=1.L1A.ftyi.gclrVR6fXM6A&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts

The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement by sending tech companies legal requests for the names, email addresses, telephone numbers and other identifying data behind social media accounts that track or criticize the agency.

In recent months, Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have received hundreds of administrative subpoenas from the Department of Homeland Security, according to four government officials and tech employees privy to the requests. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Google, Meta and Reddit complied with some of the requests, the government officials said. In the subpoenas, the department asked the companies for identifying details of accounts that do not have a real person’s name attached and that have criticized ICE or pointed to the locations of ICE agents. The New York Times saw two subpoenas that were sent to Meta over the last six months.

The tech companies, which can choose whether or not to provide the information, have said they review government requests before complying. Some of the companies notified the people whom the government had requested data on and gave them 10 to 14 days to fight the subpoena in court.

Did you think the market was like this?

https://pogowasright.org/the-data-broker-directory-who-has-your-data-where-they-got-it-and-who-they-sell-it-to/

The Data Broker Directory: Who has your data, where they got it, and who they sell it to

As seen on Codamail (formerly known as Cotse.net), an email privacy service by Packetderm.

The Scale of the Problem

The EFF and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse have identified over 750 unique data broker groups operating across U.S. state registries alone. The California Data Broker Registry lists over 500 registered companies. The global data broker market was valued at approximately $294 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach over $448 billion by 2031.

These companies collect, aggregate, analyze, and sell information about you, often without your knowledge or meaningful consent. They know where you live, where you’ve been, what you buy, what medications you take, how you drive, who your relatives are, how much you earn, and whether you’ve ever been evicted, arrested, or filed for bankruptcy.

This directory is the result of extensive research drawing from state data broker registries (California, Vermont, Texas, Oregon), the EFF/Privacy Rights Clearinghouse unified database, DataBrokersWatch.org, the Big-Ass Data Broker Opt-Out List (BADBOOL), Optery, DeleteMe, IntelTechniques, investigative journalism, enforcement records, and corporate filings. We have identified over 1,700 unique named entities operating in the data broker ecosystem.

For each major company, we’ve documented what data they collect, where they get it, who they sell it to, any enforcement actions or scandals, and available opt-out procedures. The directory is organized into the following categories:

Directory Categories

1. Consumer Data Giants

The largest and most powerful data brokers in the world, including Acxiom/LiveRamp, Experian, Equifax, TransUnion, LexisNexis, Data Axle, Epsilon, Nielsen, Thomson Reuters, and Oracle Data Cloud. These companies maintain profiles on hundreds of millions of consumers and serve as the backbone of the entire data broker ecosystem.

2. People Search & Background Check Sites

Over 100 consumer-facing sites that let anyone look up your name, address, phone number, relatives, and more. Includes ownership maps of the major corporate networks, the data supply chain explaining where they get your information, and FTC enforcement actions against the industry.

3. Location & Geolocation Data

Companies that track your physical movements through your phone. Covers SDK-based location harvesting, geofencing, government purchases of commercial location data, and the FTC enforcement actions and outright bans that followed.

4. Surveillance & Government Contractors

Companies that sell data and surveillance technology to government agencies, often enabling warrantless tracking. Covers domestic surveillance contractors, social media intelligence brokers, license plate recognition networks, and the international spyware industry.

5. Financial Data Brokers

Companies that aggregate and sell your banking, transaction, and credit data beyond the Big Three credit bureaus. Covers open-banking data aggregators, specialty consumer reporting agencies, and business credit data providers.

6. Health & Pharmaceutical Data

Companies that buy, sell, and broker your medical information. Covers clinical data aggregators, pharmaceutical analytics, health IT platforms, the mental health data market, and DOJ and FTC enforcement actions against the industry.

7. Vehicle & Driving Data

Your car is watching you. Covers telematics and driving behavior data, connected car data brokers, license plate recognition networks, and state attorney general enforcement actions against automakers and insurers.

8. Employment & Tenant Screening

Companies that decide whether you get a job or an apartment. Covers employment background check providers, income and employment verification databases, tenant screening algorithms, the DOJ’s landmark algorithmic rent-fixing case, and the evolving regulatory landscape.

9. Advertising, Marketing & Identity Data

The ad-tech ecosystem that tracks you across the web. Covers data management platforms, identity graph providers, B2B data brokers, and the real-time bidding marketplace that broadcasts your data billions of times per day.

10. Insurance Data Brokers

Companies that determine your insurance rates and coverage. Covers claims databases, medical underwriting repositories, property and geospatial intelligence, telematics and driving behavior scoring, and the growing use of AI in insurance pricing.

11. Political Data & Voter Analytics

Companies that profile you for political campaigns. Covers voter file aggregators, political data vendors across both parties, predictive modeling firms, major data breaches, and the legacy of Cambridge Analytica.

12. Telecom & Communications Data

How your phone carrier sells your data. Covers the carrier location data scandal, FCC enforcement actions, location aggregators, prison telecom surveillance, and the ongoing constitutional challenges.

13. Education & Student Data

Companies that profit from children’s data. Covers student information systems, standardized testing data sales, ed-tech surveillance tools, school monitoring software, student marketing pipelines, and FERPA’s enforcement gaps.

14. Social Media Aggregators & Web Scrapers

Companies that vacuum up your public posts and profiles. Covers social listening platforms, OSINT tools sold to government agencies, web scraping infrastructure, and the legal battles over public data collection.

15. Retail & Loyalty Program Data

Your shopping habits are for sale. Covers loyalty card analytics companies, receipt-scanning apps, transaction data platforms, and the rise of retail media networks where retailers monetize purchase data through targeted advertising.

16. Real Estate & Property Data

Companies that know every property you’ve owned, every mortgage, every tax assessment. Covers property data aggregators, MLS data providers, real estate analytics platforms, and the consolidation of the industry through major acquisitions.

17. International Data Brokers

Data brokers operating outside the United States, covering 30+ countries. Includes credit bureaus, surveillance firms, and data aggregators across the UK, EU, India, China, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Africa, the Middle East, Russia, and more. Also covers the global regulatory landscape.

Read more on Codamail to find out how to fight back and to find helpful resources.  As Stephen K. Gielda of Packetderm commented to me,  “Of particular interest is the telecom section, showing every big Cell carrier selling your location every 15 sec and the Surveillance & Government Contractors section, illustrating how the US government circumvents the 4th amendment. It is a living document and quite a large collection, so can’t be copied to your site, but thought you might be personally interested.”

PogoWasRight is more than personally interested. This is a great resource for our readers, so pick a section of interest to you and go check it out!

The Codamail directory is updated regularly as new information becomes available. Last updated: February 2026.

Apparently the proper strategy has yet to shake out.

https://www.bespacific.com/ai-is-just-starting-to-change-the-legal-profession/

AI is just starting to change the legal profession

Understanding AI – “How much are lawyers using AI? Official reports vary widely: a Thomson Reuters report found that only 28% of law firms are actively using AI, while Clio’s Legal Trends 2025 reported that 79% of legal professionals use AI in their firms. To learn more, I spoke with 10 lawyers, ranging from junior associates to senior partners at seven of the top 20 Vault law firms. Many told me that firms were adopting AI cautiously and that the industry was still in its early days of AI. The lawyers I interviewed weren’t AI skeptics. They’d tested AI tools, could identify tasks where the technology worked, and often had sharp observations about why their co-workers were slow to adopt. But when I asked about their own habits, a more complicated picture emerged. Even lawyers who understood AI’s value seemed to be leaving gains on the table, sometimes for reasons they’d readily critique in colleagues. One junior associate described the situation well: “The head of my firm said we want to be a fast follower on AI because we can’t afford to be reckless. But I think equating AI adoption with recklessness is a huge mistake. Elite firms cannot afford to view themselves as followers in anything core to their business.”

Obvious? Only if you look.

https://pogowasright.org/trumps-tiktok-deal-is-less-about-security-and-more-about-consolidating-power/

Trump’s TikTok Deal Is Less About Security, and More About Consolidating Power

Lilian Coral writes:

Following intense government pressure, TikTok has finalized its deal to sell its U.S. operations to an investor group including Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX. And after a year of deliberate federal efforts to roll back institutional accountability, weaken regulatory enforcement, and evade the rule of law, the sale of TikTok becomes even more consequential. It is not simply a resolution to a long-running policy debate. It is a signal about how power is being reorganized in the digital public sphere and about how easily democratic principles can be traded away under the guise of pragmatism.

[…]

But public trust in the new TikTok is questionable at best. Particularly, as the platform’s new terms and conditions show, TikTok is expanding data collection of its users through:

1. Precise location: Until this update, the app did not collect the precise, GPS-derived location data of U.S. users.

2. AI interactions: Now, users’ interactions with any of TikTok’s AI tools explicitly fall under data that the service may collect and store. This includes prompts and the AI-generated outputs.

3. Expanded ads network: Rather than just using your collected data to target you while using the app, your info is used to serve more relevant ads wherever you go online, including other platforms.

Read more at New America.

PogoWasRight is not a user of TikTok. If you are, please read about the deal at the above source and other sources and then share your opinion: do you think this is a good/smart deal for users or not?  Will you continue using TikTok?

An interesting source for all types of intelligence gathering…

https://www.timesofisrael.com/two-indicted-for-using-classified-info-to-place-online-bets-on-military-operations/

Two indicted for using classified info to place online bets on military operations

An Israeli military reservist and a civilian were indicted this week for using classified information to place bets regarding military operations on the popular Polymarket prediction market, authorities announced on Thursday.