There has been little public discussion regarding the week-long outage of the Washington Courts network this past week. The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) announced last Monday that they had identified “unauthorized activity” on the network and took action to “secure critical systems.” This suggests that the system was intentionally taken offline out of…

I often get questions about collaborating with participatory defense groups in my court cases, such as the Maddesyn George case in federal court or the Leah Eggleson case in Tacoma. While many lawyers might hesitate to involve supporters due to concerns about confidentiality, bench-bar press guidelines, or a perceived loss of control, and these apprehensions…

This summer, the Spokane Police Department purchased a Dragonfish drone made by Autel. The city council minutes announced the purchase, with the price set at $164,000. Although Spokane police have used smaller drones in the past, the Dragonfish is notable for its two-hour-plus flight time, 20-mile range, and use of artificial intelligence. These capabilities could…

The use of automated license plate readers started off quietly in the United States. In the 1990s car washes and pay parking lots would discreetly use the automated readers to keep track of their customers. It was the British, really, who pioneered the use of plate readers for security purposes, circling London with automatic license plate reading cameras…

Newsreaders today learned of the problem of Matt Colvin of Tennessee.
When hand sanitizer started to run out on March 1st, he drove across
Tennessee and Alabama clearing out any remaining last bottles from store
shelves. His plan was to sell it for a profit, and did so on Amazon and eBay
until they shut…

It is hard to believe that it has been almost ten years since I first wrote about the supposed phenomenon of “green tongue” from marijuana smoking. Back in 2010, I explained how the Washington Court of Appeals issued an opinion questioning the notion that marijuana smoking caused “green tongue.” The court indicated that it was…

Every county prosecutor has his or her way of handling low
level drug offenses. By low level offenses, I am referring to, for example,
cases where the police find a baggy with a little bit of heroin residue in the
back seat of a car, or perhaps a pipe with methamphetamine residue. While the
possession…