Politics and views in the United States

The DOJ says January 6th rioters who attacked police could get anti-weaponization payments, federal judges reject the federal demands for Maine and Wisconsin voter data and the spread of Flock traffic cameras raises privacy concerns.

Transcript

Welcome to 2026 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

It's abhorrent to ever, ever touch a law enforcement officer, which is why anytime anybody does that and it's a federal officer, we'll prosecute them.

But that's a completely different question with whether an individual is allowed to apply for a claim.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche says violent January 6 rioters will be considered for payouts from the administration's so-called anti-weaponization fund, But a new commission will decide who can get some of the nearly $2 billion of public money.

Nearly 1,600 people were charged after the insurrection but were eventually pardoned by the president.

More than 140 police officers were injured and two are suing to block the new fund.

The suit argues it violates the 14th Amendment, which bars the government from paying money to insurrectionists.

The DOJ has removed press releases about the riot from its website, calling them partisan propaganda.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz says his Republican peers were enraged when discussing the fund with Blanche behind closed doors.

Federal judges in Maine and Wisconsin are the latest to reject administration demands for unredacted voter data.

Federal officials say they need the birth date, social security numbers, and driver's license information to root out potential fraud.

But Maine Secretary of State Shana Bellows says the authors of the Constitution decided states should run elections because they understood the risk of giving that power to the White House.

That's the road to tyranny.

And they had just declared independence 250 years ago from King George.

They wanted the states to be in charge of elections to safeguard our democracy.

More than a dozen Republican-led states have provided the voter data to the DOJ, but other red states are refusing.

A growing number of municipalities nationwide are ending the use of flock traffic cameras over privacy concerns.

The automated license plate readers feed a nationwide database used by law enforcement.

John McRae Jones with ACLU Wisconsin says most police departments do so responsibly, but he says it's been shown to be vulnerable to abuse by ICE or other authorities.

The problem is when you have tens of thousands of license plate searches happening across the state of Wisconsin, You only need 1% of officers to be misusing that technology to have massive issues.

Many towns use state or federal grants to buy the cameras so they can install them without facing local budget debates or community pushback.

And the Trump administration says immigrants seeking permanent residency must first return to their home countries and wait, possibly for years due to backlogs.

Opponents say that could leave the U.S. with fewer doctors, teachers, and scientists and could break up tens of thousands of families.

I'm Catherine Carley for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

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