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By a unanimous vote, Hillsborough has become the latest county in Florida to expand anti-discrimination protections to the LGBT community. The historic vote to add sexual orientation and gender identity or expression as protected classes to the current Human Rights Ordinance (HRO) took place on October 1st with the leadership of Commissioner Kevin Beckner, Hillsborough’s first openly gay county commissioner.

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As we suspected, local law enforcement officials are borrowing cell phone tracking devices known as “stingrays” from the U.S. Marshals Service—and police are deliberately concealing the use of stingrays in court documents submitted to judges in criminal investigations. The ACLU of Florida released a set of internal police emails obtained today through a public records request with the subject line “Trap and Trace Confidentiality.” The documents confirm that local police, working on state court matters, hide behind the sham cloak of the U.S. Marshals’ office to keep the information about stingray use out of court files—and beyond even a court’s custody and reach.