The ShinyHunters extortion gang claimed on September 8–10, 2026 to have breached an online platform tied to Florida's Driver and Vehicle Information Database (DAVID) and stolen more than 200,000 driver records, according to reports from cybersecurity outlets.
Florida confirms 22 million driver records in DAVID database were accessed by ShinyHunters using a Plant City officer's credentials stored on a personal device.
Florida's Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles confirmed on September 12, 2026, that its DAVID driver database was breached by international cybercriminals using credentials stolen from a police department employee. The attackers exploited a password-reset flaw and claimed to have stolen over 200,000 driver records.
On September 25, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 emergency order allowing the Trump administration to use its expanded Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database to check voter eligibility before November's midterm elections. Critics have warned the system could wrongly remove U.S. citizens from electoral rolls due to unreliable data.
According to a probable cause affidavit, a USA Today reporter had examined publicly available Flock Safety audit logs and found that about 335 queries were associated with the former officer and a specific vehicle between May 20, 2025, and July 17, 2025. com/news/sarasot...
On August 26, 2026, Manatee County officials and Governor Ron DeSantis raised privacy concerns about Flock automated license plate readers, with DeSantis calling the technology "out of control" and proposing limits. County commissioners declined to approve the cameras at county buildings.
On August 19-20, 2026, body camera footage revealed a Florida police officer used automated license plate readers to target and pull over a woman he found attractive, explaining his conduct casually to investigators. The incident exemplifies widespread misuse of police surveillance databases.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on September 29 that the National Security Agency and military cyber intelligence forces will protect US election systems during November's midterm elections. The deployment aims to defend against cyberattacks on voting infrastructure.
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day featured celestial observations between August 18–20, 2026, including Perseid meteor observations, a mysterious possible meteor sighting, and nebulae imagery from the constellation Cepheus.
A whole-of-government Trump administration effort to prosecute noncitizens illegally on state voter rolls has resulted in approximately 1,600 voter fraud cases and 160 arrests as of September 22-23, 2026. Election experts say the low arrest rate relative to the search effort demonstrates that noncitizen voting is rare.
A Congressional Budget Office report found that U.S. missile interceptor stocks became critically depleted after significant expenditures in defense of Israel in June 2026 and throughout Operation Epic Fury, raising concerns about readiness for a potential conflict with China. The Pentagon classified the mission statement for Operation Epic Fury.
On August 24, 2026, the US Supreme Court lifted a lower-court injunction and handed a preliminary victory to President Trump's executive order restricting mail-in ballots ahead of the midterm elections. By August 28, a federal judge had blocked the order again, placing a 14-day hold on implementation and signaling swift legal appeals to follow.