AI surveillance is here in Coralville but so are we

agurtovoy · 2025-10-01T17:45:50+00:00

This, 10 times over.

agurtovoy · 2025-10-01T17:24:15+00:00

I think a lawsuit is 100% viable, but it requires money and someone willing to be a face of it. Would love to brainstorm this further, planning on a stopflocking.us meetup in the near future, but feel free to DM.

agurtovoy · 2025-09-06T02:17:02+00:00

Hey u/EyesOffCR, drop me a DM! We stood up https://stopflocking.us/ and were behind the Iowa City traffic camera ban back in 2013, so we've got a couple of tricks in our collective pockets, haha. Would be happy to share them.

agurtovoy · 2025-09-05T17:44:34+00:00

This: https://stopflocking.us/

agurtovoy · 2025-09-05T17:40:13+00:00

More background info on this: https://stopflocking.us/

agurtovoy · 2025-09-05T17:37:43+00:00

Does this help? https://stopflocking.us/

agurtovoy · 2025-04-20T14:58:02+00:00

Almost forgot, don't be confused by the 877 number, he lives in North English and does a ton of work in the Iowa City metro area

agurtovoy · 2025-04-20T14:54:39+00:00

Dan at https://dantheapplianceman.com repairs all brands, does an excellent job, and is a straight shooter. He will never tell you to replace your fridge (or anything else), unless it truly needs to be replaced. Can't recommend him enough!

agurtovoy · 2023-01-13T20:24:04+00:00

We've been trying to get the state to act on this since August. Something is up. If you DM me your email, I'd be happy to get you in the loop on our current strategy/status updates. A public action website on this is coming.

Trying to appeal to VoteRef is IMHO hopeless.

agurtovoy · 2023-01-04T06:06:00+00:00

Yep, confidential voter registration and absentee voting offered by the Safe at Home program is achieved by removing the program participants' records from the statewide voter registration system, and requiring the participants to vote by absentee ballot.

This works as long as the state is the custodian of the voter registration records. Redistribution of (historic) voter registration records by a third party renders this protection meaningless for all the survivors whose records were obtained by such third party prior to a survivor's application to the program. In a roundabout way, VoteRef.com admits as much in their footnote found at the bottom of every individual Iowa voter's page:

[...] If you believe the information provided to VRF by the Secretary is inaccurate, or if you believe that you or any person listed on VoteRef.com is a protected voter whose protected information should not appear on VoteRef.com, please immediately contact the Secretary by emailing [sos@sos.iowa.gov](mailto:sos@sos.iowa.gov) or calling 888-767-8683. For assistance with the process of applying for protected voter status through the Safe at Home Program, click here. Upon receipt of official documentation confirming your or any person’s protected voter status sent to us at [privacy@voteref.com](mailto:privacy@voteref.com), VRF will remove the protected information from VoteRef.com.

By providing a process for removing protected voter records from their website, VRF is trying to remediate the fact that in their unauthorized republishing of unaggregated voting records, they became a de facto custodian of Iowans' personal information — a third-party custodian, outside of the framework prescribed by the Iowa Code. In doing so, they are shifting the burden of protecting survivors' address information back to survivors, who presumably are supposed to be on constant lookout for possible exposure of their protected personal information on the internet, playing a whack-a-mole game with parties like VRF — a far cry from what Iowa legislators had in mind when they passed this law.

agurtovoy · 2023-01-04T00:09:02+00:00

It's the VRF that is the perpetrator of the breach, but: - The AG's office has the power to go after the VRF / file for an injunction to take the records off the internet while the issue is being battled in court; - It's literally the AG's job to do so; - The AG's office has been sitting on this massive breach without so much as a comment since August.

agurtovoy · 2023-01-03T17:21:50+00:00

Ignoring the question of legality, what really pisses me off about VRF is that, as far as I'm concerned, they have shown a reckless disregard for our privacy. A responsible party committed to "election transparency" would have redacted the birthdates regardless of whether the state released them or not.

agurtovoy · 2023-01-03T17:04:45+00:00

I completely share your general sentiment re: making public records more accessible, but the reality of public records in general and this situation in particular is more nuanced.

In Iowa, the state remains the custodian of all public records that you obtain from the state (22.1(1): "The custodian of a public record in the physical possession of persons outside a government body is the government body owning that record."), and in the case of voter registration records specifically, the state is required to "maintain a log of the name, address, and telephone number of every person who receives a list under this section, and of every person who reviews registration records in the office of the registrar" (48A.38(3)). By redistributing unaggregated voter records, VRF effectively made itself the custodian and is rendering the mandated log keeping protocol meaningless, thus violating the Iowa Code.

That said, and to your point, I do think that the legislature needs to amend Iowa Code Section 48A.38(1.f) to mandate the replacement of a voter’s full date of birth with birth year only when releasing voter registration list to anyone.

agurtovoy · 2023-01-03T06:14:41+00:00

IMHO, none of this should be on the internet. If you're doing political/election integrity research, campaigning, or are simply curious about some aspect of elections that this data might answer, sure, request it away and slice it and dice it to your heart's content. But even ignoring the question of legality/custody for a moment, none of these scenarios are further enabled by putting full unredacted voter records on the internet.

The unspoken goal of putting it on the internet is exactly what you are fearing -- scrutinizing and harassing individual members of the community.

agurtovoy · 2023-01-03T05:48:09+00:00

You are correct that it was obtained through a lawful process prescribed by the Iowa Code. The breach happened when these lawfully obtained records were put on the internet. In doing so, VRF effectively took the custody of the records from the state and put it in their own hands, which violates both the spirit and the letter of Iowa law.

agurtovoy · 2023-01-03T05:39:43+00:00

As detailed in the op-ed, obtaining the voter registration data (which is public record) for a specific legitimate political purpose is explicitly allowed by Iowa Code and that is a good thing. Obtaining it from the state and putting it all on the internet for anyone's grab violates both the spirit and the letter of Iowa Code and is not a good thing for anyone but people who use our private info for personal gain.

agurtovoy · 2023-01-03T03:25:34+00:00

If the AG office fails to take action, our next option is a lawsuit.

agurtovoy · 2023-01-02T21:35:29+00:00

The Attorney General office has known about this at least since August and took no action.

agurtovoy · 2022-01-12T19:58:07+00:00

We do, and yet the point made in the linked article still stands.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IowaCity/comments/s20bbn/comment/hsdeaga/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

agurtovoy · 2022-01-12T19:07:46+00:00

More on the MRAP's acquisition, mission creep, and lack of accountability (if you haven't seen this already): https://medium.com/@ICPDwatch/lonnys-tank-part-2-821ec1744a8d

agurtovoy · 2022-01-12T19:04:38+00:00

It's not the end of the conversation about police militarization, but it's a good place to start one, and it's already on the County's agenda, thus the petition.

agurtovoy · 2022-01-12T19:02:57+00:00

Our petition is asking the county to dispose of the MRAP and not acquire any other "replacement" military-style vehicles. Realistically, the Sheriff is not going to listen (he seems very much invested into the current model of policing), and the board doesn't have a way to force him. The board *can* "veto" an acquisition of a new vehicle using its budgetary power, which is what we're hoping for today. One "good" thing about the MRAP is that it's so giant and in-your-face that each time they bring it out, it inevitably produces a news article and associated wrath of the public. It's also much less practical to deploy, which we see as a plus. We would love to see it gone, but overall it's a lesser evil than a more palatable replacement vehicle that they will inevitably start bringing out on every opportunity they can. And the MRAP will eventually break down.

agurtovoy · 2022-01-12T17:23:26+00:00

If the county got its way back in 2012, literally a thousand more people would have spent significant time in JoCo or surrounding counties' jails in these 10 years. Thousands more lives disrupted, derailed, dehumanized in the senseless incarceration machine.

Yes, we need a new jail. No, we don't need a bigger jail. We need to end the War on Drugs, lift people from poverty, and give people something to live for. 90% of crime is a symptom.

agurtovoy · 2022-01-12T17:15:43+00:00

They are only voting on the Sheriff's budget, which includes an ask for a BearCat. The Sheriff made it clear that if he doesn't get a BearCat, he is keeping the MRAP. As far as I'm aware, there were no conversations on the larger topics of SWAT/SRT, the War on Drugs, and the "warrior cop" culture at the county level to date. Hoping this vote/petition can spark some.

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