“Almost any digitally altered content, when left up to an arbitrary individual on the Internet, could be considered harmful,” Mendez said, even something seemingly benign like AI-generated estimates of voter turnouts shared online.
Additionally, the Supreme Court has held that “even deliberate lies (said with ‘actual malice’) about the government are constitutionally protected” because the right to criticize the government is at the heart of the First Amendment.
“These same principles safeguarding the people’s right to criticize government and government officials apply even in the new technological age when media may be digitally altered: civil penalties for criticisms on the government like those sanctioned by AB 2839 have no place in our system of governance,” Mendez said.
According to Mendez, X posts like Kohls’ parody videos are the “political cartoons of today” and California’s attempt to “bulldoze over the longstanding tradition of critique, parody, and satire protected by the First Amendment” is not justified by even “a well-founded fear of a digitally manipulated media landscape.” If officials find deepfakes are harmful to election prospects, there is already recourse through privacy torts, copyright infringement, or defamation laws, Mendez suggested.
Kosseff told Ars that there could be more narrow ways that government officials looking to protect election integrity could regulate deepfakes online. The Supreme Court has suggested that deepfakes spreading disinformation on the mechanics of voting could possibly be regulated, Kosseff said.
Mendez got it “exactly right” by concluding that the best remedy for election-related deepfakes is more speech, Kosseff said. As Mendez described it, a vague law like AB 2839 seemed to only “uphold the State’s attempt to suffocate” speech.
Parody is vital to democratic debate, judge says
The only part of AB 2839 that survives strict scrutiny, Mendez noted, is a section describing audio disclosures in a “clearly spoken manner and in a pitch that can be easily heard by the average listener, at the beginning of the audio, at the end of the audio, and, if the audio is greater than two minutes in length, interspersed within the audio at intervals of not greater than two minutes each.”
In his complaint, Christopher Kohls—who is known as “Mr Reagan” on YouTube and X (formerly Twitter)—said that he was suing “to defend all Americans’ right to satirize politicians.” He claimed that California laws, AB 2655 and AB 2839, were urgently passed after X owner Elon Musk shared a partly AI-generated parody video on the social media platform that Kohls created to “lampoon” presidential hopeful Kamala Harris.
AB 2655, known as the “Defending Democracy from Deepfake Deception Act,” prohibits creating “with actual malice” any “materially deceptive audio or visual media of a candidate for elective office with the intent to injure the candidate’s reputation or to deceive a voter into voting for or against the candidate, within 60 days of the election.” It requires social media platforms to block or remove any reported deceptive material and label “certain additional content” deemed “inauthentic, fake, or false” to prevent election interference.
The other law at issue, AB 2839, titled “Elections: deceptive media in advertisements,” bans anyone from “knowingly distributing an advertisement or other election communication” with “malice” that “contains certain materially deceptive content” within 120 days of an election in California and, in some cases, within 60 days after an election.
Both bills were signed into law on September 17, and Kohls filed his complaint that day, alleging that both must be permanently blocked as unconstitutional.
Elon Musk called out for boosting Kohls’ video
Kohls’ video that Musk shared seemingly would violate these laws by using AI to make Harris appear to give speeches that she never gave. The manipulated audio sounds like Harris, who appears to be mocking herself as a “diversity hire” and claiming that any critics must be “sexist and racist.”
“Making fun of presidential candidates and other public figures is an American pastime,” Kohls said, defending his parody video. He pointed to a long history of political cartoons and comedic impressions of politicians, claiming that “AI-generated commentary, though a new mode of speech, falls squarely within this tradition.”
While Kohls’ post was clearly marked “parody” in the YouTube title and in his post on X, that “parody” label did not carry over when Musk re-posted the video. This lack of a parody label on Musk’s post—which got approximately 136 million views, roughly twice as many as Kohls’ post—set off California governor Gavin Newsom, who immediately blasted Musk’s post and vowed on X to make content like Kohls’ video “illegal.”
In response to Newsom, Musk poked fun at the governor, posting that “I checked with renowned world authority, Professor Suggon Deeznutz, and he said parody is legal in America.” For his part, Kohls put up a second parody video targeting Harris, calling Newsom a “bully” in his complaint and claiming that he had to “punch back.”
Shortly after these online exchanges, California lawmakers allegedly rushed to back the governor, Kohls’ complaint said. They allegedly amended the deepfake bills to ensure that Kohls’ video would be banned when the bills were signed into law, replacing a broad exception for satire in one law with a narrower safe harbor that Kohls claimed would chill humorists everywhere.
“For videos,” his complaint said, disclaimers required under AB 2839 must “appear for the duration of the video” and “must be in a font size ‘no smaller than the largest font size of other text appearing in the visual media.'” For a satirist like Kohls who uses large fonts to optimize videos for mobile, this “would require the disclaimer text to be so large that it could not fit on the screen,” his complaint said.
On top of seeming impractical, the disclaimers would “fundamentally” alter “the nature of his message” by removing the comedic effect for viewers by distracting from what allegedly makes the videos funny—”the juxtaposition of over-the-top statements by the AI-generated ‘narrator,’ contrasted with the seemingly earnest style of the video as if it were a genuine campaign ad,” Kohls’ complaint alleged.
Imagine watching Saturday Night Live with prominent disclaimers taking up your TV screen, his complaint suggested.
It’s possible that Kohls’ concerns about AB 2839 are unwarranted. Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon told Politico that Kohls’ parody label on X was good enough to clear him of liability under the law.
“Requiring them to use the word ‘parody’ on the actual video avoids further misleading the public as the video is shared across the platform,” Gardon said. “It’s unclear why this conservative activist is suing California. This new disclosure law for election misinformation isn’t any more onerous than laws already passed in other states, including Alabama.”
Amazon may be forced to meet some unionized delivery drivers at the bargaining table after a regional National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) director determined Thursday that Amazon is a joint employer of contractors hired to ensure the e-commerce giant delivers its packages when promised.
This seems like a potentially big loss for Amazon, which had long argued that delivery service partners (DSPs) exclusively employed the delivery drivers, not Amazon. By rejecting its employer status, Amazon had previously argued that it had no duty to bargain with driver unions and no responsibility for alleged union busting, The Washington Post reported.
But now, after a yearlong investigation, the NLRB has issued what Amazon delivery drivers’ union has claimed was “a groundbreaking decision that sets the stage for Amazon delivery drivers across the country to organize with the Teamsters.”
In a press release reviewed by Ars, the NLRB regional director confirmed that as a joint employer, Amazon had “unlawfully failed and refused to bargain with the union” after terminating their DSP’s contract and terminating “all unionized employees.” The NLRB found that rather than bargaining with the union, Amazon “delayed start times by grounding vans and not preparing packages for loading,” withheld information from the union, and “made unlawful threats.” Teamsters said those threats included “job loss” and “intimidating employees with security guards.”
Sean M. O’Brien, the Teamsters general president, claimed the win for drivers unionizing not just in California but for nearly 280,000 drivers nationwide.
“Amazon drivers have taken their future into their own hands and won a monumental determination that makes clear Amazon has a legal obligation to bargain with its drivers over their working conditions,” O’Brien said. “This strike has paved the way for every other Amazon worker in the country to demand what they deserve and to get Amazon to the bargaining table.”
Unless a settlement is reached, the NLRB will soon “issue a complaint against Amazon and prosecute the corporate giant at a trial” after finding that “Amazon engaged in a long list of egregious unfair labor practices at its Palmdale facility,” Teamsters said.
Apparently downplaying the NLRB determination, Amazon is claiming that the Teamsters are trying to “misrepresent what is happening here.” Seemingly Amazon is taking issue with the union claiming that an NLRB determination on the merits of their case is a major win when the NLRB has yet to issue a final ruling.
According to the NLRB’s press release, “a merit determination is not a ‘Board decision/ruling’—it is the first step in the NLRB’s General Counsel litigating the allegations after investigating an unfair labor practice charge.”
Amazon’s spokesperson, Eileen Hards, told Ars that the NLRB office confirmed to Amazon that it will be “dismissing most of the Teamsters’ more significant claims it filed last year in Palmdale.” That apparently includes dismissing the Teamsters’ claims that Amazon unlawfully terminated its contract with one of their DSPs and that Amazon had a legal obligation to honor the Teamsters’ contract with that DSP.
Next, the NLRB will determine if the “remaining allegations should be decided by an administrative law judge,” Hards said. After that, Amazon will have opportunities to appeal any unfavorable rulings, first to the Board and then to a federal appeals court, the NLRB confirmed to Ars.
Hards confirmed that Amazon still expects all the Teamsters’ remaining claims will be dismissed.
“As we have said all along, there is no merit to the Teamsters’ claims,” Hards told Ars. “If and when the agency decides it wants to litigate the remaining allegations, we expect they will be dismissed as well.”
But Hards declined to comment on the impacts of the NLRB’s determination that Amazon is a joint employer of the unionized delivery drivers.
One Amazon driver in Palmdale, Jessie Moreno, said that worker conditions for Amazon drivers could improve because of the determination.
“Amazon can no longer dodge responsibility for our low wages and dangerous working conditions, and it cannot continue to get away with committing unfair labor practices,” Moreno said. “We are Amazon workers, and we are holding Amazon accountable.”
Amazon drivers uniting “like never before”
The NLRB determination came following a complaint from 84 Amazon workers from Palmdale, California, who became the first Amazon delivery drivers to unionize in April 2023, represented by Teamsters Local 396.
While their DSP recognized the union, workers launched an unfair labor strike in June 2023 after Amazon allegedly “engaged in dozens of unfair labor practices in violation of federal labor law in an effort to quash workers’ organizing efforts,” the Teamsters said.
The picket line quickly expanded “to over 50 Amazon warehouses across 10 states,” the Teamsters said. Most recently, drivers in Skokie, Illinois, “launched their own unfair labor practice strike in June 2024,” right around the same time that “more than 5,500 members of the Amazon Labor Union in New York voted by an overwhelming 98.3 percent to affiliate with the Teamsters.”
In their blog, the Teamsters said that Amazon “has avoided responsibility for its drivers through its DSP subcontractor business model” since 2018, but drivers hope that yesterday’s NLRB determination could put an end to the dodgy tactic.
“The NLRB’s joint employer determination shatters that myth” that “DSP drivers are not official employees of Amazon” and “makes clear that through its DSP business model, Amazon exercises widespread control over drivers’ labor and working conditions, making Amazon the drivers’ employer,” the Teamsters said.
The Teamsters said that they are “confident” that “the NLRB’s regional determination for the Palmdale workers will extend to Amazon DSP drivers who unionize nationwide.” One union member and Amazon driver, Brandi Diaz, celebrated what she considered to be the US government recognizing that the DSP program is a “sham.”
“We wear Amazon uniforms, we drive Amazon vans, and Amazon controls every minute of our day,” Diaz said. “Amazon can no longer have all the benefits of their own fleet of drivers without the responsibilities that come with it. The time has come for Amazon drivers across the country to organize with the Teamsters and demand what we deserve.”
Drivers are currently fighting to increase wages and improve driver safety amid what they claim are unchecked dangerous conditions they must navigate as Amazon drivers. Moreno said that the NLRB determination was a significant step toward unionizing more drivers and ending Amazon’s allegedly unfair labor practices nationwide.
“We have been on strike to stop Amazon’s lawbreaking and we are winning at the NLRB, while we are uniting Amazon workers across the country like never before,” Moreno said.
San Francisco’s city attorney David Chiu is suing to shut down 16 of the most popular websites and apps allowing users to “nudify” or “undress” photos of mostly women and girls who have been increasingly harassed and exploited by bad actors online.
These sites, Chiu’s suit claimed, are “intentionally” designed to “create fake, nude images of women and girls without their consent,” boasting that any users can upload any photo to “see anyone naked” by using tech that realistically swaps the faces of real victims onto AI-generated explicit images.
“In California and across the country, there has been a stark increase in the number of women and girls harassed and victimized by AI-generated” non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII) and “this distressing trend shows no sign of abating,” Chiu’s suit said.
“Given the widespread availability and popularity” of nudify websites, “San Franciscans and Californians face the threat that they or their loved ones may be victimized in this manner,” Chiu’s suit warned.
In a press conference, Chiu said that this “first-of-its-kind lawsuit” has been raised to defend not just Californians, but “a shocking number of women and girls across the globe”—from celebrities like Taylor Swift to middle and high school girls. Should the city official win, each nudify site risks fines of $2,500 for each violation of California consumer protection law found.
On top of media reports sounding alarms about the AI-generated harm, law enforcement has joined the call to ban so-called deepfakes.
Chiu said the harmful deepfakes are often created “by exploiting open-source AI image generation models,” such as earlier versions of Stable Diffusion, that can be honed or “fine-tuned” to easily “undress” photos of women and girls that are frequently yanked from social media. While later versions of Stable Diffusion make such “disturbing” forms of misuse much harder, San Francisco city officials noted at the press conference that fine-tunable earlier versions of Stable Diffusion are still widely available to be abused by bad actors.
In the US alone, cops are currently so bogged down by reports of fake AI child sex images that it’s making it hard to investigate child abuse cases offline, and these AI cases are expected to continue spiking “exponentially.” The AI abuse has spread so widely that “the FBI has warned of an uptick in extortion schemes using AI generated non-consensual pornography,” Chiu said at the press conference. “And the impact on victims has been devastating,” harming “their reputations and their mental health,” causing “loss of autonomy,” and “in some instances causing individuals to become suicidal.”
Suing on behalf of the people of the state of California, Chiu is seeking an injunction requiring nudify site owners to cease operation of “all websites they own or operate that are capable of creating AI-generated” non-consensual intimate imagery of identifiable individuals. It’s the only way, Chiu said, to hold these sites “accountable for creating and distributing AI-generated NCII of women and girls and for aiding and abetting others in perpetrating this conduct.”
He also wants an order requiring “any domain-name registrars, domain-name registries, webhosts, payment processors, or companies providing user authentication and authorization services or interfaces” to “restrain” nudify site operators from launching new sites to prevent any further misconduct.
Chiu’s suit redacts the names of the most harmful sites his investigation uncovered but claims that in the first six months of 2024, the sites “have been visited over 200 million times.”
While victims typically have little legal recourse, Chiu believes that state and federal laws prohibiting deepfake pornography, revenge pornography, and child pornography, as well as California’s unfair competition law, can be wielded to take down all 16 sites. Chiu expects that a win will serve as a warning to other nudify site operators that more takedowns are likely coming.
“We are bringing this lawsuit to get these websites shut down, but we also want to sound the alarm,” Chiu said at the press conference. “Generative AI has enormous promise, but as with all new technologies, there are unanticipated consequences and criminals seeking to exploit them. We must be clear that this is not innovation. This is sexual abuse.”
Elon Musk’s fight defending X’s content moderation decisions isn’t just with hate speech researchers and advertisers. He has also long been battling regulators, and this week, he seemed positioned to secure a potentially big win in California, where he’s hoping to permanently block a law that he claims unconstitutionally forces his platform to justify its judgment calls.
At a hearing Wednesday, three judges in the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals seemed inclined to agree with Musk that a California law requiring disclosures from social media companies that clearly explain their content moderation choices likely violates the First Amendment.
Passed in 2022, AB-587 forces platforms like X to submit a “terms of service report” detailing how they moderate several categories of controversial content. Those categories include hate speech or racism, extremism or radicalization, disinformation or misinformation, harassment, and foreign political interference, which X’s lawyer, Joel Kurtzberg, told judges yesterday “are the most controversial categories of so-called awful but lawful speech.”
The law would seemingly require more transparency than ever from X, making it easy for users to track exactly how much controversial content X flags and removes—and perhaps most notably for advertisers, how many users viewed concerning content.
To block the law, X sued in 2023, arguing that California was trying to dictate its terms of service and force the company to make statements on content moderation that could generate backlash. X worried that the law “impermissibly” interfered with both “the constitutionally protected editorial judgments” of social media companies, as well as impacted users’ speech by requiring companies “to remove, demonetize, or deprioritize constitutionally protected speech that the state deems undesirable or harmful.”
Any companies found to be non-compliant could face stiff fines of up to $15,000 per violation per day, which X considered “draconian.” But last year, a lower court declined to block the law, prompting X to appeal, and yesterday, the appeals court seemed more sympathetic to X’s case.
At the hearing, Kurtzberg told judges that the law was “deeply threatening to the well-established First Amendment interests” of an “extraordinary diversity of” people, which is why X’s complaint was supported by briefs from reporters, freedom of the press advocates, First Amendment scholars, “conservative entities,” and people across the political spectrum.
All share “a deep concern about a statute that, on its face, is aimed at pressuring social media companies to change their content moderation policies, so as to carry less or even no expression that’s viewed by the state as injurious to its people,” Kurtzberg told judges.
When the court pointed out that seemingly the law simply required X to abide by content moderation policies for each category defined in its own terms of service—and did not compel X to adopt any policy or position that it did not choose—Kurtzberg pushed back.
“They don’t mandate us to define the categories in a specific way, but they mandate us to take a position on what the legislature makes clear are the most controversial categories to moderate and define,” Kurtzberg said. “We are entitled to respond to the statute by saying we don’t define hate speech or racism. But the report also asks about policies that are supposedly, quote, ‘intended’ to address those categories, which is a judgment call.”
“This is very helpful,” Judge Anthony Johnstone responded. “Even if you don’t yourself define those categories in the terms of service, you read the law as requiring you to opine or discuss those categories, even if they’re not part of your own terms,” and “you are required to tell California essentially your views on hate speech, extremism, harassment, foreign political interference, how you define them or don’t define them, and what you choose to do about them?”
“That is correct,” Kurtzberg responded, noting that X considered those categories the most “fraught” and “difficult to define.”
Enlarge/ A pedestrian walks past a flown Falcon 9 booster at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, on Tuesday, the same day Elon Musk said he will relocate the headquarters to Texas.
Elon Musk said Tuesday that he will move the headquarters of SpaceX and his social media company X from California to Texas in response to a new gender identity law signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Musk’s announcement, made via a post on X, follows his decision in 2021 to move the headquarters of the electric car company Tesla from Palo Alto, California, to Austin, Texas, in the wake of coronavirus lockdowns in the Bay Area the year before. Now, two of Musk’s other major holdings are making symbolic moves out of California: SpaceX to the company’s Starbase launch facility near Brownsville, Texas, and X to Austin.
The new gender identity law, signed by Governor Newsom, a Democrat, on Monday, bars school districts in California from requiring teachers to disclose a change in a student’s gender identification or sexual orientation to their parents without the child’s permission. Musk wrote on X that the law was the “final straw” prompting the relocation to Texas, where the billionaire executive and his companies could take advantage of lower taxes and light-touch regulations.
“Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas,” Musk wrote Tuesday on X.
The first-in-the-nation law in California is a flashpoint in the struggle between conservative school boards concerned about parental rights and proponents for the privacy rights of LGBTQ people.
“I did make it clear to Governor Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children,” wrote Musk, who on Saturday endorsed former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee in this year’s presidential election.
In a statement, Newsom’s office said the law “does not allow a student’s name or gender identity to be changed on an official school record without parental consent” and “does not take away or undermine parents’ rights.”
What does this mean for SpaceX?
Musk’s comments on X didn’t mention details about the implications of his companies’ moves to Texas. However, while Tesla’s corporate headquarters relocated to Texas in 2021, the company still produces cars in California and announced a new engineering hub in Palo Alto last year. The situation with SpaceX is likely to be similar.
Since Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he renamed it X, rewrote the network’s policies on content moderation, and laid off most of the company’s staff, reducing its workforce to around 1,500 employees. With vast manufacturing capacities, SpaceX currently has more than 13,000 employees, so a relocation for Musk’s space company would affect more people and potentially be more disruptive than one at X.
SpaceX’s current headquarters in Hawthorne, California, serves as a factory, engineering design center, and mission control for the company’s rockets and spacecraft. Relocating these facilities wouldn’t be easy, but SpaceX may not need to.
Dozens of California police agencies are still sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with out-of-state authorities without a warrant, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has revealed. This is occurring despite guidance issued by State Attorney General Rob Bonta last year.
Clarifying a state law that limits state public agencies to sharing ALPR data only with other public agencies, Bonta’s guidance pointed out that “importantly,” the law’s definition of “public agency” “does not include out-of-state or federal law enforcement agencies.”
Bonta’s guidance came after EFF uncovered more than 70 California law enforcement agencies sharing ALPR data with cops in other states, including anti-abortion states. After Bonta clarified the statute, approximately half of these agencies told EFF that they updated their practices to fall in line with Bonta’s reading of the law. Some states could not verify that the practice had ended yet, though.
In a letter to Bonta, EFF praised the guidance as protecting Californians’ privacy but also flagged more than 30 police agencies that either expressly rejected Bonta’s guidance or else refused to confirm that they’ve stopped sharing data with out-of-state authorities. EFF staff attorney Jennifer Pinsof told Ars that it’s likely that additional agencies are also failing to comply, such as agencies that EFF never contacted or that recently acquired ALPR technology.
“We think it is very likely other agencies in the state remain out of compliance with the law,” EFF’s letter said.
EFF is hoping that making Bonta aware of the ongoing non-compliance will end sharing of highly sensitive location data with police agencies in states that do not provide as many privacy protections as California does. If Bonta “takes initiative” to enforce compliance, Pinsof said that police may be more willing to consider the privacy risks involved, since Bonta can “communicate more easily with the law enforcement community” than privacy advocates can.
However, even Bonta may struggle, as some agencies “have dug their heels in,” Pinsof said.
Many state police agencies simply do not agree with Bonta’s interpretation of the law, which they claim does allow sharing ALPR data with cops in other states. In a November letter, a lawyer representing the California State Sheriffs’ Association, California Police Chiefs Association, and California Peace Officers’ Association urged Bonta to “revisit” his position that the law “precludes sharing ALPR data with out-of-state governmental entities for legitimate law enforcement purposes.”
The cops argued that sharing ALPR data with cops in other states assists “in the apprehension and prosecution of child abductors, narcotics traffickers, human traffickers, extremist hate groups, and other cross-state criminal enterprises.”
They told Bonta that the law “was not designed to block law enforcement from sharing ALPR data outside California where the information could be used to intercede with criminal offenders moving from state to state.” As they see it, cooperation between state authorities is “absolutely imperative to effective policing.”
Here’s where cops say the ambiguity lies. The law defines public agency as “the state, any city, county, or city and county, or any agency or political subdivision of the state or a city, county, or city and county, including, but not limited to, a law enforcement agency.” According to cops, because the law does not “specifically refer to the State of California” or “this state,” it could be referring to agencies in any state.
“Had the legislation referred to ‘a State’ rather than ‘the State,’ there would be no debate about whether sharing was prohibited,” the police associations’ letter said. “We see no basis to read such a limitation into the legislation based on the word ‘the’ rather than ‘a.'”
The police associations also reminded Bonta that the California Legislature considered passing a bill that would have explicitly “prohibited the out-of-state sharing of ALPR information” with states interfering with “the right to seek abortion services” but “rejected it.” They told Bonta that “the Legislature’s refusal to adopt a position consistent with the position” he is “advancing is troubling.”
EFF said that California police can still share ALPR data with out-of-state police in situations permitted by law, like when out-of-state cops have a “warrant for ALPR information based on probable cause and particularity.” Instead, EFF alleged that cops are “dragnet sharing through commercial cloud storage systems” without warrants, which could be violating Californians’ right to privacy, as well as First and Fourth Amendment rights.
EFF urged Bonta to reject the police associations’ “crabbed interpretation” of the statute, but it’s unclear if Bonta will ever respond. Pinsof told Ars that Bonta did not directly respond to EFF’s initial investigation, but the guidance he later issued seemed to suggest that he got EFF’s message.
Police associations and Bonta’s office did not respond to Ars’ request to comment.
Enlarge/ Booking photo of Alan Filion, charged with multiple felonies connected to a “swatting” incident at the Masjid Al Hayy Mosque in Sanford, Florida.
Police suspect that a 17-year-old from California, Alan Filion, may be responsible for “hundreds of swatting incidents and bomb threats” targeting the Pentagon, schools, mosques, FBI offices, and military bases nationwide, CNN reported.
Swatting occurs when fraudulent calls to police trigger emergency response teams to react forcefully to non-existent threats.
Recently extradited to Florida, Filion was charged with multiple felonies after the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) traced a call where Filion allegedly claimed to be a mass shooter entering the Masjid Al Hayy Mosque in Sanford, Florida. The caller played “audio of gunfire in the background,” SCSO said, while referencing Satanism and claiming he had a handgun and explosive devices.
Approximately 30 officers responded to the call in May 2023, then determined it was a swatting incident after finding no shooter and confirming that mosque staff was safe. In a statement, SCSO Sheriff Dennis Lemma said that “swatting is a perilous and senseless crime, which puts innocent lives in dangerous situations and drains valuable resources” by prompting a “substantial law enforcement response.”
Seminole County authorities coordinated with the FBI and Department of Justice to track the alleged “serial swatter” down, ultimately arresting Filion on January 18. According to SCSO, police were able to track down Filion after he allegedly “created several accounts on websites offering swatting services” that were linked to various IP addresses connected to his home address. The FBI then served a search warrant on the residence and found “incriminating evidence.”
Filion has been charged as an adult for a variety of offenses, including making a false report while facilitating or furthering an act of terrorism. He is currently being detained in Florida, CNN reported.
Earlier this year, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) introduced legislation to “crack down” on swattings after he became a target at his home in December. If passed, the Preserving Safe Communities by Ending Swatting Act would impose strict penalties, including a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for any swatting that lead to serious injuries. If death results, bad actors risk a lifetime sentence. That bill is currently under review by the House Judiciary Committee.
“We must send a message to the cowards behind these calls—this isn’t a joke, it’s a crime,” Scott said.
Last year, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) warned that an “unprecedented wave” of swatting attacks in just two weeks had targeted 11 states, including more than 200 schools across New York. In response, Schumer called for over $10 million in FBI funding to “specifically tackle the growing problem of swatting.”
Schumer said it was imperative that the FBI begin tracking the incidents more closely, not just to protect victims from potentially deadly swattings, but also to curb costs to law enforcement and prevent unnecessary delays of emergency services tied up by hoax threats.
As a result of Schumer’s push, the FBI announced it would finally begin tracking swatting incidents nationwide. Hundreds of law enforcement agencies and police departments now rely on an FBI database to share information on swatting incidents.
Coordination appears to be key to solving these cases. Lemma noted that SCSO has an “unwavering dedication” to holding swatters accountable, “regardless of where they are located.” His office confirmed that investigators suspect that Filion may have also been behind “other swatting incidents” across the US. SCSO said that it will continue coordinating with local authorities investigating those incidents.
“Make no mistake, we will continue to work tirelessly in collaboration with our policing partners and the judiciary to apprehend swatting perpetrators,” Lemma said. “Gratitude is extended to all agencies involved at the local, state, and federal levels, and this particular investigation and case stands as a stern warning: swatting will face zero tolerance, and measures are in place to identify and prosecute those responsible for such crimes.”
