'Adams ups fight on NYC public drug use with bill for doctors to involuntarily commit addicts'

 Mayor Eric Adams wants to make it easier to take drug addicts off the streets — and into treatment against their will.

Adams on Wednesday will unveil the “Compassionate Interventions Act,” a proposed state law that would expand involuntary commitment for people suffering substance abuse disorder, The Post has learned.

The change would help New York City fight public drug use, officials said — a scourge in places such as the Hub in the Bronx, where addicts openly inject heroin and other narcotics.

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams waits to speak after being endorsed by members of law enforcement for re-election, at City Hall in New York City, July 17, 2025.REUTERS

The bill — which will be introduced in the 2026 state legislative session — would put New York in line with 37 other states that allow drug addicts to be involuntarily committed, officials said.

“Our administration refuses to turn our backs on New Yorkers in need, and with today’s announcement, we’re laying out a vision that will help get everyone the support they need,” Adams said in a statement.

“In the name of public safety, public health, and the public interest, we must rally to help those in crisis because ‘anything goes’ is worse than nothing at all.”

The proposed law would be a sequel of sorts to the Supportive Interventions Act, a new involuntary commitment law that Adams had successfully pushed for during the last legislative session.

Before the change, people could only be committed against their will if they showed a substantial risk to physically harm themselves or others.

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A zoned-out junkie stands near sanitation workers sweeping Roberto Clemente Plaza at East 149th Street and Third Avenue in the Bronx on Wednesday, July 9, 2025, following a visit from Deputy Mayors Camille Joseph Varlack, Kaz Daughtry, and NYPD commanders.Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post

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A drug dealer on an electric bike sells to zoned-out junkies at Roberto Clemente Plaza at East 149th Street and Third Avenue in the Bronx on Wednesday, July 9, 2025.Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post

The law now allows officials to take mentally ill people off the streets if they’re so sick that they cannot feed, clothe or otherwise take care of their essential needs.

Adams this week launched his “End Anything Goes” campaign, an election-year push to show how his administration is cracking down on public disorder, while expanding services for New Yorkers with mental illness and addiction.

The Compassionate Interventions Act would allow medical professionals to transport people who appear to be struggling with addiction, as well as allow judges to mandate treatment if they refuse voluntary care.

The mayor’s plan will also invest $27 million focused on improving access to drug treatment, boost funding for syringe service programs by $14 million and create a new drop-in space at the Hub, officials said.

https://nypost.com/2025/08/14/us-news/eric-adams-advances-fight-against-nyc-public-drug-use-with-new-law-allowing-doctors-to-involuntarily-commit-addicts/

Big Brother is watching you — but this homeowner made him back down

 Last month, Charlie Wolf attended a meeting of the Greers Ferry, Ark., city council to complain about a license-plate camera that he said was violating the Fourth Amendment by regularly taking pictures of his driveway and front yard.

Greers Ferry Police Chief Kallen Lacy acknowledged Wolf’s “distress” but rejected his legal analysis, saying “over 5,000 cities” across the country use such cameras, “so there is no constitutional violation there.”

Despite Lacy’s assurance, the widespread acceptance of automated license-plate readers as a crime-fighting tool only magnifies the privacy concerns they raise.

A license-plate reader in New York.Christopher Sadowski

They enable routine surveillance of a sort that would have troubled the Fourth Amendment’s framers.

“Unlike red-light cameras or speed cameras that are triggered by specific violations,” the Institute for Justice notes, ALPRs “photograph every vehicle that drives by and can use artificial intelligence to create a profile with identifying information that then gets stored in a massive database.

“Once that happens, officials can search the database for any vehicle they wish, all without a warrant.”

Worse, “departments around the country are automatically sharing data with each other, making it simple for police anywhere to track drivers’ movements.

“All of this arbitrary discretion threatens people’s privacy, security and freedom of movement by creating an atmosphere where everyone knows they are being watched and tracked whenever they hit the road.”

Wolf’s experience crystallizes these concerns.

As he noted at the city council meeting, the camera that was installed across the street from his house on May 13 was photographing “our yard, curtilage and vehicles” whenever a car passed by.

“We’re being photographed and entered into a database without consent or violation of any law,” Wolf said.

The camera captured images of Wolf and his wife whenever they left their home or returned to it.

The camera also documented the comings and goings of the Wolfs’ visitors, including their friends, children and grandchildren.

Depending on the vagaries of traffic, it might record trips to the mailbox, kids playing in the yard or anything else happening in front of the house.

Local officials initially were unfazed by the Wolfs’ complaints, insisting that the camera, one of five installed in the tiny town under a contract with the ALPR company Flock Safety, would stay where it was.

But they reconsidered after receiving a letter from Institute for Justice attorney Joshua Windham, who explained why the couple’s objections deserved more respect than they had received.

In 2018, Windham noted, the Supreme Court held that the FBI violated the Fourth Amendment when it collected cellphone location data without a warrant supported by probable cause.

That ruling, he explained, was based on the principle that the Fourth Amendment “must preserve at least as much privacy as Americans would have enjoyed when it was adopted.”

Back then, Windham observed, “police lacked the means to create a historical record of people’s physical movements” because “they simply did not have the manpower or the technology to do so.”

He noted that a federal judge in Iowa and two state supreme courts have recognized that “the placement of a surveillance camera in front of a home,” like tracking someone’s movements via cellphone data, “may violate a reasonable privacy expectation.”

The morning after Windham sent that letter, Greers Ferry officials posted a defense of ALPRs that read like a Flock press release.

But by the end of the month, they had agreed to remove the camera that was spying on the Wolfs.

That small victory for privacy was followed a week later by another encouraging development: Scarsdale, NY, terminated its ALPR contract with Flock Safety after more than 400 residents signed a petition expressing concern about “the broad and lasting implications of deploying such a surveillance system.”

The official rationale for the town’s decision was lack of funding.

But the criticism provoked by the project suggests Americans are beginning to recognize the perils of surrendering their privacy in the name of public safety.

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine.

https://nypost.com/2025/08/13/opinion/big-brother-is-watching-you-how-one-homeowner-fought-back/

45 arrests in DC last night; 29 ‘illegal aliens who were removed

 Trump White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt gave the latest arrest numbers out of Washington, DC, from last night, as the National Guard patrolled the streets and set up checkpoints in the crime-riddled capital.

She said "45 criminal arrests were made for assault — second- and first-degree — and for the distribution of illegal drugs and narcotics."

"Three illegal firearms were seized. In addition to that, there were 29 illegal aliens who were removed off of DC's streets last night," Leavitt said on Fox News.

https://nypost.com/2025/08/13/us-news/trump-live-updates-news-analysis-august-13-14/

'Hunter Biden on Melania Trump’s $1B threat on ‘defamatory’ Epstein remarks: ‘F— that’'

 Hunter Biden crassly brushed aside first lady Melania Trump’s threat to sue him for $1 billion if he doesn’t retract “false” and “defamatory” comments linking her to late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

“F–k that. That’s not going to happen,” Biden said with an arrogant smile during an interview on the YouTube show “Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan” on Thursday.

The first lady’s team revealed Wednesday that it put the scandal-scarred former first son on notice for suggesting that Epstein introduced her to her husband, Donald Trump.

Her team has also issued similar threats to other key figures. Last month, for example, the Daily Beast retracted an article that peddled similar claims after getting threatened by the first lady’s team.

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Former first son Hunter Biden scoffed at Melania Trump’s $1 billion defamation suit threat.YouTube / Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan

Democratic strategist James Carville also apologized and scrubbed an episode of his podcast last week in which he speculated there was an “Epstein connection” involving the first lady.

“Failure to comply will leave Mrs. Trump with no choice but to pursue any and all legal rights and remedies available to her to recover the overwhelming financial and reputational harm that you have caused her to suffer,” the first lady’s attorney Alejandro Brito wrote in an Aug. 6 demand letter, Fox News reported.

Despite his bravado, Biden could find himself in a lot of financial trouble if he were sued. The former first son has claimed in court documents that he is straddled with “significant debt in the millions of dollars range” amid struggling art sales and expensive legal bills.

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Melania is striking back at remarks Hunter made about her and late sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.Getty Images

Last month, during an interview on “Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan,” Biden weighed in on the Epstein drama dogging the president. 

“[It is] beyond a doubt that he [Trump] and Epstein were very close friends for a very long period of time. They spent enormous time together — they spent an enormous amount of time together around young women,” he said on the show last month. 

“According to his biographer, Jeffrey Epstein introduced Melania,” he added.

Biden, like the Daily Beast and others, was citing author Michael Wolff, who has made bold and dubious claims about the president in the past that have been subject to dispute. 

The former first son stressed that he was referencing other sources beyond Wolff.

“What I said was what I have heard and seen, reported and written, primarily from Michael Wolff, but also dating back all the way to 2019 when the New York Times, I think … reported that sources said that Jeffrey Epstein claimed to be the person to introduce Donald Trump to Melania at that time,” he said in the interview that dropped Thursday. 

A cocky Biden also suggested he would love to get to a deposition with the Trumps over the Epstein claims.

“I also think they’re bullies, and they think that a billion dollars is going to scare me,” he said. “If they want to sit down for a deposition and clarify the nature of the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein — if the president, the first lady want to do that, and all of the known associates around them at the time of whatever time that they met, I’m more than happy to provide them the platform to be able to do it.”

Both the president and first lady have said they met in 1998 during a New York Fashion Week party at Kit Kat Klub in New York City hosted by Paolo Zampolli. 

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Biden suggested in the interview that Epstein introduced Melania to Donald Trump.Getty Images

Melania recounted in her memoir that the future president sat down next to her and began the conversation. The two tied the knot years later in 2005.

“I found myself drawn to his magnetic energy,” she wrote.

Brito, who is serving as Melania’s counsel, ripped Wolff as a “serial fabulist” and accused Hunter of amplifying his comments to draw attention. 

“Given your vast history of trading on the names of others – including your surname – for your personal benefit, it is obvious that you published these false and defamatory statements about Mrs. Trump to draw attention to yourself,” Brito chided in his letter to Hunter. 

Brito had given Hunter until Aug. 7, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. to comply with his demands for a retraction and apology.

https://nypost.com/2025/08/14/us-news/hunter-biden-shrugs-off-melania-trumps-1b-defamation-threat-f-that/