Cops and AI – enabling more tyranny

[Here is a truly evil example of jack-booted thugs abusing information technology. A guest commentary from Matt Insley with our own added comments. A warning for us all.]

---

It’s a July 2025 morning in rural Tennessee. Fifty-year-old grandmother Angela Lipps is babysitting four young children at her home.

Then the U.S. Marshals arrive.

They’ve come to arrest her — at gunpoint — not for anything she’s done in Tennessee, but for bank fraud allegedly committed in North Dakota. A state she’s never once visited. Ms. Lipps would spend the next 108 days in a Tennessee jail cell before being extradited to North Dakota, held there without bail.

Eventually, proof of her innocence turned out to be mundane but irrefutable. Bank records showed her buying cigarettes at a gas station and ordering pizza via Uber Eats — all in Tennessee — at the exact moment police claimed she was committing fraud in Fargo.

The case was dismissed on Christmas Eve 2025. And Ms. Lipps was released in snowy Fargo, wearing the same summer clothes she was arrested in back in July. [We don’t know how she was even able to get back home to Tennessee! Or the costs of this parody of justice to her, her family, and her community.]

An AI-Enabled Miscarriage of Justice by the Usual Suspects

How did this happen?

Fargo police were investigating a bank fraud case in which a woman used a fake U.S. Army military ID to withdraw tens of thousands of dollars.

Surveillance video showed the suspect; police ran the footage through facial recognition software — software contracted by the West Fargo PD. [Hmmm. Fraud? Contract violation? Back-scratching? Nah, not in North Dakota! Not by our heroes in blue!]

Here’s how the breakdown of due diligence took place:

First, Fargo detectives wrongly assumed their counterparts at West Fargo had also submitted the footage to the state-certified facial recognition hub. [A quite impressive lack of professionalism and following procedures. Procedures supposed to protect the innocent and the integrity of the “justice” system.]

Next, no one from the Fargo Police Department ever called to question Ms. Lipps. Instead, detectives looked at her social media and Tennessee driver’s license photo and concluded she appeared to be the suspect based on facial features, body type and hair color. [Ditto on professionalism, procedures, and protection.]

The company behind this mockery isn’t some niche AI tool. By 2020, Clearview AI had scraped over 3 billion photos from social media and websites, and held contracts with law enforcement agencies across the country. [Hmmm. Are ours and your photos in this database? Privacy? Permission? Huh?]

Also in 2020, Clearview suffered a major data breach that exposed its entire client list. Company attorney Tor Ekeland’s response was a masterpiece of indifference: “Unfortunately, data breaches are part of life in the 21st century.” [And what protection do those businesses and agencies that you and us here at TPOL offer? Don’t expect a good answer any time soon.]

The same company that couldn’t secure its own client list in 2020 is the one whose software put an innocent grandmother behind bars in 2025. [Keeping in mind that many (perhaps most) of their clients were public (government) agencies that supposedly have an obligation to protect those that they “serve.”]

About three months after Ms. Lipps’ release on Christmas Eve, Fargo Police Chief Dave Zibolski issued a public apology — though not to Ms. Lipps directly. [Of course not: our lords and masters (aka jack-booted thugs) are not supposed to apologize directly – that might weaken our confidence in them.]

So, one agency ran a scan they weren’t licensed to run. Another agency trusted the result without verifying.

And a grandmother spent nearly six months in jail.

It’s like the worst April Fools’ joke ever, courtesy of AI. [And the incredible arrogance, stupidity, and lack of professionalism by not just one but at least three different cop shops (police agencies) and the politicians and courts who supposedly oversee them.]

---

And that is the States in 2026. (Well, 2025 – she was sprung just before Xmas, over three months ago. Fortunately, Fall and Winter up to that time were pretty mild in Fargo, if not as warm as Tennessee.

A recent YouTube posting, reposted by Freedom’s Phoenix, claims that the cops can now use a new AI tool called Gotham, created by the company Palantir. It is claimed this tool is now installed on police computers. After doing a traffic stop, they can simply type in some of your information (from your driver’s license, vehicle registration, and of course, insurance card) and see all the info on your bank accounts/where you have been. Clearly, the tool is named after Batman’s home city, where for decades the former Batgirl, Babs Gordon, was “The Oracle,” a hacker and info specialist who could find out anything about anyone. Clearly, the increasingly untrustworthy police forces of the Fifty States (and probably all North America and the Caribbean) can start to enjoy her superpowers. Along with all of the potential for tens of thousands of errors similar to what Angela Lipps “enjoyed.”

READ MORE

Source: https://freedombunker.com/2026/04/04/cops-and-ai-enabling-more-tyranny/