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'Full of Sh*t' Texas Cops Lied About Why They Used AI Surveillance to Track Woman Who Had Abortion
"This is what cruel, abusive men seeking to exert power over women do," said a pair of reproductive rights reporters.
Oct 08, 2025
Police in Texas—led by a county sheriff later charged with an unrelated felony sex crime—lied about their motive for using artificial intelligence-powered surveillance technology to search for a woman who allegedly self-administered a medication abortion, new documents obtained by 404 Media and Electronic Frontier Foundation revealed on Tuesday.
In May, 404 Media's Joseph Cox and Jason Koebler reported that the Johnson County Sheriff's Office tapped into 83,000 automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras manufactured by Flock Safety while conducting a nationwide search for an unnamed woman who authorities said took abortion medication in alleged violation of a 2021 state ban that empowers anti-abortion vigilantes to sue anyone who “aids or abets” the medical procedure.
Since thata law's passage—and the right-wing US Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization the following year—Texas has passed additional forced birth laws banning nearly all abortions as well as targeting providers who mail abortion pills from other states.
According to Cox and Koebler, Johnson County Sheriff's deputies accessed Flock cameras in states where abortion is legal, including Illinois and Washington. Johnson County Sheriff Adam King told 404 Media at the time that his department searched for the woman because "her family was worried that she was going to bleed to death, and we were trying to find her to get her to a hospital.”
“We weren’t trying to block her from leaving the state or whatever to get an abortion,” King said. “It was about her safety.”
NEW: Cops in Texas told 404 Media in May they used Flock to find a woman who self-administered an abortion out of concern for her safety. Documents now show police were conducting a “death investigation” and discussed whether they could charge her with a crime: www.404media.co/police-said-...
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— 404 Media (@404media.co) October 7, 2025 at 6:30 AM
King's office, forced birth advocates, and Flock Safety subsequently attempted to gaslight those who reported that deputies searched for the woman as part of a probe into potential violations of state laws.
However, new documents and court records obtained by the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and shared with 404 Media show that Johnson County Sheriff's deputies initiated a "death investigation" of a "nonviable fetus" and discussed prosecuting the woman for allegedly self-administering an abortion.
"To no one's surprise, they were full of shit," Jessica Valenti and Kylie Cheung wrote Tuesday for Valenti's Abortion, Every Day Substack.
As EFF's Dave Maass and Rindala Alajaji noted:
In recent years, anti-abortion advocates and prosecutors have increasingly attempted to use “fetal homicide” and “wrongful death” statutes—originally intended to protect pregnant people from violence—to criminalize abortion and pregnancy loss. These laws, which exist in dozens of states, establish legal personhood of fetuses and can be weaponized against people who end their own pregnancies or experience a miscarriage.
In fact, a new report from Pregnancy Justice found that in just the first two years since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, prosecutors initiated at least 412 cases charging pregnant people with crimes related to pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or birth—most under child neglect, endangerment, or abuse laws that were never intended to target pregnant people. Nine cases included allegations around individuals’ abortions, such as possession of abortion medication or attempts to obtain an abortion—instances just like this one. The report also highlights how, in many instances, prosecutors use tangentially related criminal charges to punish people for abortion, even when abortion itself is not illegal.
"By framing their investigation of a self-administered abortion as a 'death investigation' of a 'nonviable fetus,' Texas law enforcement was signaling their intent to treat the woman’s self-managed abortion as a potential homicide, even though Texas law does not allow criminal charges to be brought against an individual for self-managing their own abortion," Maass and Alajaji added.
Valenti and Cheung asserted that "this is what cruel, abusive men seeking to exert power over women do: harass them over their abortions."
They were referring not only to the Texas woman's "vindictive, controlling partner" who tipped off police—and was later convicted of pistol-whipping and choking her—but also to King, who, despite being recently arrested and indicted on four felony sexual harassment charges, was allowed to return to work part-time. King was also previously indicted in August for alleged sexual harassment and corrupt influence for allegedly retaliating against a witness.
"These are the kind of men who target women for their abortions," Valenti and Cheung wrote. "It’s a trend that AED warned about in our 2025 predictions: that the anti-abortion movement would increasingly rely on aggrieved and abusive men to do their dirty work."
They continued:
Since November, top Texas-based anti-abortion activists have bragged about recruiting men to sue over their partner’s abortions. Jonathan Mitchell is one of the anti-abortion attorneys leading that charge: after his client Marcus Silva sued his ex’s friends over her abortion, he tried to use the case to blackmail her into resuming a sexual relationship. At this point, even Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is reportedly recruiting men for this purpose.
"This isn’t about a few bad actors—but the predictable outcome of living in a reproductive police state bent on surveillance and punishment," Valenti and Cheung said. "And in a moment when pregnancy criminalization is on the rise, it’s vital we understand how this police state operates."
The willingness of Republicans including US Vice President JD Vance to embrace the tracking of women who have or are seeking abortions has raised alarms among reproductive rights advocates.
"Reproductive dragnets are not hypothetical concerns. These surveillance tactics open the door for overzealous, anti-abortion state actors to amass data to build cases against people for their abortion care and pregnancy outcomes," Ashley Kurzweil, senior policy analyst in reproductive health and rights at the National Partnership for Women & Families, told 404 Media Tuesday.
“Law enforcement exploitation of mass surveillance infrastructure for reproductive health criminalization promises to be increasingly disruptive to the entire abortion access and pregnancy care landscape," Kurzweil added. "The prevalence of these harmful data practices and risks of legal action drive real fear among abortion seekers and helpers—even intimidating people from getting the care they need."
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As Trump Signs TikTok Order, Critics Sound Alarm Over Corruption and US Propaganda
One watchdog leader noted that the president's deal involves "one of his major crypto business partners that generates tens of millions of dollars a year for the Trump family."
Sep 25, 2025
President Donald Trump on Thursday issued an executive order claiming to "save" TikTok from a federal law that would ban the video-sharing platform in the United States, but critics are condemning the Republican's deal as yet another case of him "picking winners and losers in government policy based on who is enriching his family."
Trump initially kicked off efforts to force TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest with an August 2020 executive order, but Democratic former President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan legislation that would ban the platform based on national security concerns last year.
Since returning to office, Trump has pledged to "save" TikTok, delaying enforcement of the law and negotiating a deal under which, according to a White House fact sheet, the US application "will be majority-owned by US investors, operated in the US by a board of directors with national security and cybersecurity credentials, and subject to strict rules to protect Americans' data and our national security."
The fact sheet also confirms that "ByteDance will hold less than 20% of the stock as required by law," and "Oracle—one of the nation's leading technology companies—will act as TikTok’s security provider and independently monitor and assure the safety of all operations in the US."
Critics have expressed alarm about both the anticipated quality of the US platform and the reported investors.
OpenSecrets noted Thursday that Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison is "a Trump supporter and major bankroller of Republican candidates and causes," and the company "has spent at least $11 million on federal-level government lobbying during each of the past four full years," a trend that is set to continue this year.
Citing unnamed sources, CNBC reported Thursday that, in addition to Oracle, the main investors will be Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi's MGX. Previous reporting has also suggested involvement from venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.
Trump on the TikTok deal: "Rupert Murdoch is involved."
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) September 25, 2025 at 4:35 PM
While some opponents of the Trump plan have highlighted his ties to Ellison, Andreessen, and Horowitz, Tony Carrk, executive director of the watchdog group Accountable.US, focused on his relationship with MGX in a Thursday statement.
"President Trump's use of his office to enrich himself and his friends seems to know no bounds," Carrk said. "His grand scheme to 'save' TikTok just so happens to involve the enrichment of one of his major crypto business partners that generates tens of millions of dollars a year for the Trump family."
"That's no coincidence for the only US president in history that has seen his bottom line grow by billions from the White House," he asserted. "Meanwhile, working Americans see their costs continue to increase, from groceries to healthcare to housing. It's clear the president's priority is himself, not the rest of us."
Trump's Thursday order affirms that the deal complies with last year's law and allows another 120 days to finalize the details.
The Associated Press reported that "Trump said Thursday that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has agreed to move forward with it. However, the Chinese embassy in Washington didn't immediately respond to an AP inquiry seeking confirmation that China has formally signed off on the proposed framework deal."
US political leaders have long claimed that under ByteDance's control, users may encounter content favored by the Chinese government. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said earlier this week that "if the concern had been that TikTok could be a conduit for Chinese government propaganda—a concern the Supreme Court declined to even consider—people can now be concerned that TikTok could be a conduit for US government propaganda."
Joining Trump in the Oval Office for the executive order signing on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance seemed to confirm that's the plan, telling reporters that "the US company will have control over how the algorithm pushes content to users, and that was a very important part of it."
Responding to Vance's remarks, one social media user quipped, "Ahh, so it was just an issue of *whose* propaganda."
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Experts Warn TikTok Deal Supplants Fake Threat of 'Chinese Propaganda' With Real Threat of MAGA Propaganda
"People can now be concerned that TikTok could be a conduit for US government propaganda," said the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Sep 23, 2025
As a prospective deal takes shape to hand partial ownership and control of social media giant TikTok to US tech giant Oracle, progressive critics are warning that it could soon become a source of pro-Trump propaganda while giving right-wing oligarchs another powerful media mouthpiece.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal last week, the current plan is to put TikTok's US business under the control of a consortium that will include Oracle, as well as investment firm Silver Lake, and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Oracle was founded by Larry Ellison, who was one of Trump's first backers in Silicon Valley. Andreessen Horowitz's Marc Andreessen donated $2.5 million to Trump's super PAC during the 2024 election campaign and he currently serves as an economic adviser to the president.
In addition to those two, right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch and computer pioneer Michael Dell are also rumored to be part of the consortium.
The idea of the world's most popular video platform in the world being under the control of billionaire Trump allies has set off alarms among critics who warn that it could be used to sway public opinion with a barrage of MAGA propaganda.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) pointed to statements made by Trump allies to warn that the TikTok deal could greatly damage the free flow of information in the US.
"If the concern had been that TikTok could be a conduit for Chinese government propaganda—a concern the Supreme Court declined to even consider—people can now be concerned that TikTok could be a conduit for US government propaganda," EFF said. "An administration official reportedly has said the new TikTok algorithm will be 'retrained' with US data to make sure the system is 'behaving properly.'"
New Yorker journalist Clare Malone wrote in a recent article that "the supposed national-security concerns of TikTok will go largely unaddressed" under the proposed deal, which she argued would do more to "bolster an emerging media conglomerate, under the auspices of the Ellison family, who are assiduously friendly to Trump."
To put this into perspective, wrote Malone, the Ellison family could soon "own a movie studio, multiple television streamers, two news networks, and have a significant stake in the world’s fastest-growing social-media platform, all while hosting the data of millions of users and providing much of the cloud-computing infrastructure that powers corporate America—a level of vertical integration that, even in an age of rapid consolidation, is unprecedented."
Former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich also noted that TikTok isn't the only media platform being eyed by Ellison.
"[Ellison's] media company owns CBS News and is plotting a bid for Warner Bros., which owns CNN," he wrote. "When billionaires take control of communication platforms, it’s not a win for free speech. It’s a win for oligarchy."
This major consolidation also caught the attention of former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, who recently told The Hollywood Reporter that he had serious concerns about the Ellisons buying up his one-time employer, as well as potentially owning CNN as well.
“I do think... without preaching about it, but that we, all of us, all the Americans, have to be concerned about the consolidation of huge billionaires getting control of nearly all of the major news outlets,” Rather said. “This is not healthy for the country, and it is something to worry about... It’s pretty hard to be optimistic about the possibilities of the Ellisons buying CNN.”
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