Billionaire Larry Ellison Says AI Surveillance Will Keep Citizens 'On Their Best Behavior,' The CIA-Epstein Connection, Phone Ban Improves School
October 10, 2025

Larry Ellison, the billionaire cofounder of Oracle ... said AI will usher in a new era of surveillance that he gleefully said will ensure "citizens will be on their best behavior." Ellison made the comments as he spoke to investors earlier this week during an Oracle financial analysts meeting, where he shared his thoughts on the future of AI-powered surveillance tools. Ellison said AI would be used in the future to constantly watch and analyze vast surveillance systems, like security cameras, police body cameras, doorbell cameras, and vehicle dashboard cameras. "We're going to have supervision," Ellison said. "Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times, and if there's a problem, AI will report that problem and report it to the appropriate person. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on." Ellison also expects AI drones to replace police cars in high-speed chases. "You just have a drone follow the car," Ellison said. "It's very simple in the age of autonomous drones." Ellison's company, Oracle, like almost every company these days, is aggressively pursuing opportunities in the AI industry. It already has several projects in the works, including one in partnership with Elon Musk's SpaceX. Ellison is the world's sixth-richest man with a net worth of $157 billion.

By law, the Central Intelligence Agency isn’t allowed to operate domestically in the United States. But ... going back to its earliest years, the agency has, in fact, interfered in homeland affairs to combat dissident movements (historically, from the Left), to defend its institutional prerogatives — and, increasingly, to recruit assets among the financial elite. Two former CIA officers and one former intelligence official told me that the [CIA's National Resources Division] is conspicuously absent from the Epstein debate. This, even as the NR must have conducted interviews with the man going back decades. The NR should also have maintained records of those conversations, according to all three officials. Under Attorney General Guideline 12333, intelligence officers, including those serving in the NR, are required to report criminal wrongdoing to the Department of Justice during the course of their investigations. But over scotch and soda on the 50th floor, why would an officer ask, and an executive tell, anything other than what both parties want to hear? “It is inconceivable given Jeffrey Epstein’s travel record and associations that he was not approached by the NR at some point before his death,” one former CIA officer said. “It would have left the New York NR division in the lurch not to have contacted him.” And if that’s the case, there should be a paper trail. “Every walk-in, every contact, every handling, every meeting, every termination — you are supposed to document it.”

In an exchange this week on “All-In Podcast,” Alex Karp was on the defensive. The Palantir CEO used the appearance to downplay and deny the notion that his company would engage in rights-violating in surveillance work. “We are the single worst technology to use to abuse civil liberties, which is by the way the reason why we could never get the NSA or the FBI to actually buy our product,” Karp said. What he didn’t mention was the fact that a tranche of classified documents revealed by [whistleblower and former NSA contractor] Edward Snowden and The Intercept in 2017 showed how Palantir software helped the National Security Agency and its allies spy on the entire planet. Palantir software was used in conjunction with a signals intelligence tool codenamed XKEYSCORE, one of the most explosive revelations from the NSA whistleblower’s 2013 disclosures. XKEYSCORE provided the NSA and its foreign partners with a means of easily searching through immense troves of data and metadata covertly siphoned across the entire global internet, from emails and Facebook messages to webcam footage and web browsing. A 2008 NSA presentation describes how XKEYSCORE could be used to detect “Someone whose language is out of place for the region they are in,” “Someone who is using encryption,” or “Someone searching the web for suspicious stuff.” In May, the New York Times reported Palantir would play a central role in a White House plan to boost data sharing between federal agencies, “raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.”

The penthouse of the sleek, postmodern Metropolitan Tower in Midtown Manhattan offers panoramic views of New York. But for more than five years, a former Wall Street trader used it as a sex “dungeon,” luring women in and leaving them maimed and bruised, federal prosecutors say. Howard Rubin, 70, a former Salomon Brothers bond trader ... was arrested Friday on sex trafficking charges. Prosecutors said he brought women to the penthouse blocks from Central Park, where a bedroom was painted red, soundproofed and fitted with devices to use on the women. Along with a personal assistant, Jennifer Powers, Mr. Rubin recruited and paid at least a half-dozen women to participate in bondage and sadomasochism, but the acts went far beyond what the women had signed up for. Prosecutors said Mr. Rubin took advantage of the women, many of whom were especially vulnerable because of their histories of addiction and abuse. Though women were told they could use a “safe word” to stop any sexual encounter, prosecutors said they were often unable to utter it because they were gagged or Mr. Rubin simply ignored their pleas. The room would often remain locked during the encounters ... while the women were shocked, beaten and violated. Mr. Rubin also provided the women with copious amounts of drugs and alcohol before their sex acts. In one encounter, Mr. Rubin gave a female victim a sedative that made her unconscious so he could enact a rape fantasy.

Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former director of Global Public Policy for Facebook and author of the recently released tell-all book “Careless People,” told U.S. senators ... that Meta actively targeted teens with advertisements based on their emotional state. In response to a question from Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Wynn-Williams admitted that Meta (which was then known as Facebook) had targeted 13- to 17-year-olds with ads when they were feeling down or depressed. “It could identify when they were feeling worthless or helpless or like a failure, and [Meta] would take that information and share it with advertisers,” Wynn-Williams told the senators on the subcommittee for crime and terrorism. “Advertisers understand that when people don’t feel good about themselves, it’s often a good time to pitch a product — people are more likely to buy something.” She said the company was letting advertisers know when the teens were depressed so they could be served an ad at the best time. As an example, she suggested that if a teen girl deleted a selfie, advertisers might see that as a good time to sell her a beauty product as she may not be feeling great about her appearance. They also targeted teens with ads for weight loss when young girls had concerns around body confidence. If Meta was willing to target teens based on their emotional states, it stands to reason they’d do the same to adults. One document displayed during the hearing showed an example of just that.

Over the typical lifetime, happiness tends to follow a U-shaped curve, peaking at 30, plummeting at age 50, before spiking again after 70. It’s a pattern replicated using data going back as far as the 1970s in almost 150 countries. But around 2011, researchers noticed an astonishing reversal in this trend. “This empirical regularity has been replaced by a monotonic decrease in illbeing by age,” they reported in an NBER working paper. In plain English, younger people today are unhappier, both compared to previous generations and to their older peers. In the US, for example, reported rates of anxiety among young people have exploded. So too have emergency room visits for self-harm. Similar trends can be seen in places like other English-speaking countries and the Nordics. “Why did it happen all over the world?” [New York University's Jonathan] Haidt asked before sharing the theory he also puts forward in his best-selling book: “We have over-protected children in the real world and under-protected them online.” Today, rather than playing with their friends, kids stay at home on their devices. Instead of hearing chatter and laughter in the corridor of schools, we hear the gentle tapping of screens. In the UK, as part of the Smartphone Free Childhood grassroots movement, 85,000 parents have signed a pact committing to delay giving their child a smartphone. To date, parents in 25 countries, from Argentina to Uzbekistan, have joined the movement.

The insecticide chlorpyrifos is a powerful tool for controlling various pests, making it one of the most widely used pesticides during the latter half of the 20th century. Like many pesticides, however, chlorpyrifos lacks precision. In addition to harming non-target insects like bees, it has also been linked to health risks for much larger animals – including us. Now, a new US study suggests those risks may begin before birth. Humans exposed to chlorpyrifos prenatally are more likely to exhibit structural brain abnormalities and reduced motor functions in childhood and adolescence. Progressively higher prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos was associated with incrementally greater deviations in brain structure, function, and metabolism in children and teens, the researchers found, along with poorer measures of motor speed and motor programming. This supports previous research linking chlorpyrifos with impaired cognitive function and brain development, but these findings are the first evidence of widespread and long-lasting molecular, cellular, and metabolic effects in the brain. Subjects in this urban cohort were likely exposed to chlorpyrifos at home, since many were born before or shortly after the US Environmental Protection Agency banned residential use of chlorpyrifos in 2001. The pesticide is still used in agriculture around the world. "Widespread exposures ... continue to place farm workers, pregnant women, and unborn children in harm's way," says senior author Virginia Rauh.

There has been a surge of concern and interest in the threat of “surveillance pricing,” in which companies leverage the enormous amount of detailed data they increasingly hold on their customers to set individualized prices for each of them — likely in ways that benefit the companies and hurt their customers. The central battle in such efforts will be around identity: do the companies whose prices you are checking or negotiating know who you are? Can you stop them from knowing who you are? Unfortunately, one day not too far in the future, you may lose the ability to do so. Many states around the country are creating digital versions of their state driver’s licenses. Digital versions of IDs allow people to be tracked in ways that are not possible or practical with physical IDs — especially since they are being designed to work ... online. It will be much easier for companies to request — and eventually demand — that people share their IDs in order to engage in all manner of transactions. It will make it easier for companies to collect data about us, merge it with other data, and analyze it, all with high confidence that it pertains to the same person — and then recognize us ... and execute their price-maximizing strategy against us. Not only would digital IDs prevent people from escaping surveillance pricing, but surveillance pricing would simultaneously incentivize companies to force the presentation of digital IDs by people who want to shop.

A man convicted in a post-9/11 terrorism sting was ordered freed from prison by a judge who criticized the FBI for relying on an “unsavory” confidential informant for an agency-invented conspiracy to blow up New York synagogues and shoot down National Guard planes. U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon ... granted James Cromitie, 58, compassionate release from prison six months after she ordered the release of his three co-defendants, known as the Newburgh Four, for similar reasons. The four men from the small river city 60 miles north of New York City were convicted of terrorism charges in 2010. They were arrested after allegedly planting “bombs” that were packed with inert explosives supplied by the FBI. Critics have accused federal agents of entrapping a group of men who were down on their luck after doing prison time. In a scathing ruling, McMahon wrote that the FBI invented the conspiracy and identified the targets. Cromitie and his co-defendants, she wrote, “would not have, and could not have, devised on their own a crime involving missiles that would have warranted the 25-year sentence the court was forced to impose.” “The notion that Cromitie was selected as a ‘leader’ by the co-defendants is inconceivable, given his well-documented buffoonery and ineptitude,” she wrote. Cromitie was bought into the phony plot by the federal informant Shaheed Hussain, whose work has been criticized for years by civil liberties groups.

The cafeteria at Ballard High School during lunch is a loud place. Students are talking and laughing, playing card games and going out to the courtyard for an informal recess. This year the high school in Louisville instituted a cellphone ban from “bell to bell” — meaning, not just during instructional time, as is now required by state law in Kentucky, but also during lunch and time between classes. Kentucky joins a growing number of states, schools and districts that have been implementing new phone bans. In the first month of school this year, students took out 67 percent more books than the same month last year. “Even my library aides who do the bulk of the circulating were like, ‘Gosh, there’s a lot of kids checking out books,’” said Stephanie Conrad, the school’s librarian. Conrad was prepared for the uptick in library use because of similar phenomena at other schools that instituted cellphone bans, but she said it has still been exciting to see how much kids are reading — and engaging more with their peers. “Like, a minute or two of downtime with kids, they used to have their phone. They were kind of in this little cellphone cocoon. Very quiet, not interacting,” Conrad said. And now — “it’s wonderful. They’re interacting, and they’re not isolated online.” Neuss, the principal, acknowledges that ... most students would still prefer to have their phones during lunch, but from where he sits, they look like they’re having more fun without them.

Having a sense of purpose in life may help people live longer. Now, new research from the University of California in Davis shows that having a sense of purpose in life may have another benefit as people age: reducing the risk of dementia. The new study ... found that people who reported a higher sense of purpose in life were about 28% less likely to develop cognitive impairment—including mild cognitive impairment and dementia. The protective effect of having a purpose was seen across racial and ethnic groups. It also remained significant even after accounting for education, depression, and the APOE4 gene, which is a known risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. “Our findings show that having a sense of purpose helps the brain stay resilient with age,” said Aliza Wingo, senior author. “Even for people with a genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease, sense of purpose was linked to a later onset and lower likelihood of developing dementia.” The findings support the idea that psychological well-being plays a key role in healthy aging, said Thomas Wingo, a co-author of the study. Wingo hopes future studies will explore whether purpose-building interventions can help prevent dementia. “What’s exciting about this study is that people may be able to ‘think’ themselves into better health. Purpose in life is something we can nurture,” he said. “It’s never too early — or too late — to start thinking about what gives your life meaning.”

The aviary has a narrow duck pond in the back and a plywood square painted with the portrait of a coyote hanging on the front door. Inside, 71-year-old Willie H. uses plastic tweezers to feed moistened dog food pellets to juvenile robins through the bars of their cage. Like every day, he does this with his pet cockatiel, Bird, on his shoulder. The makeshift aviary he’s spent the past 20 years working in is within the confines of the Marion Correctional Institution, where he’s serving a potential life sentence. The Ohio Wildlife Center has been sending injured and orphaned wildlife to Marion for rehabilitation since the 1990s. According to Brittany Jordan, the center’s wildlife rehabilitation operational director, these behind-bars rehab centers are now in five prisons across the state, and more institutions are joining the program as a way to help both the inmates and the animals. Willie ... was one of the first inmates to participate in the program, which has rehabilitated and released thousands of animals that required extra care after being treated at the Ohio Wildlife Center’s hospital in Columbus. The inmates volunteer as caretakers and learn how to handle, feed and administer medication to a wide range of species—from barn swallows to opossums. While the Prison Program benefits wildlife ... it also rewards inmates with new skills, routine and purpose. They tend to stay out of trouble, away from substance abuse, and have an increased interest to learn more about the animals they care for.

The U.S. military is facing its worst recruitment crisis since the end of the Vietnam War. We Are Not Your Soldiers is a project of New York City-based nonprofit World Can’t Wait. The organization sends military veterans into schools to share honest stories of the harm they have caused and suffered. In doing so, they hope to prevent young people from signing up.Susan Cushman is a professor at Nassau Community College ... where military recruiters have a heavy presence. She hosts veterans from We Are Not Your Soldiers to help her students “think about alternative ways to achieve an education and get a pension and get a job and travel, without feeling the only option is to join the military.” In order to counter both the narrative and incentives that military recruiters offer young people, veterans try to share the truth about traumatic personal experiences as well as practical information. In addition to the military’s preparedness for counter-recruitment, there’s also the issue of simple math. The Pentagon has a multibillion-dollar budget for recruiting alone. By contrast, We Are Not Your Soldiers has an annual budget of $25,000. With these challenges in mind, [the nonprofit] NNOMY produced a video called “Before You Enlist!” The 16-minute video seeks to lay out a case against military service that preempts the military’s psychological recruitment tactics. With veteran stories and statistics, the video debunks perks, such as “free education” and job training, that the military uses to appeal to potential recruits.

www.peerservice.org - PEERS websites: Spreading inspiration, education, & empowerment
www.momentoflove.org - Every person in the world has a heart
www.personalgrowthcourses.net - Dynamic online courses powerfully expand your horizons
www.WantToKnow.info - Reliable, verifiable information on major cover-ups
www.weboflove.org - Strengthening the Web of Love that interconnects us all