This week, I want to offer a smaller question: What is still yours to do today?

Listen: how Baba describes the waiting

In the latest Redemption Story conversation, Baba describes reading Scripture, joining a fellowship and eventually taking on responsibility for other people while he was in detention. He talks about wanting to go home while learning to serve where he was.

This is his account of faith and personal change. The episode’s accompanying article distinguishes his testimony from legal claims that have not been independently established. Finding meaning in suffering does not make the suffering right, or guarantee a satisfying ending.

Listen to Baba’s full conversation

If you open one link this week, start there. Content note: the conversation discusses detention, fear and difficult conditions in custody.

A small practice for an uncertain week

Take a sheet of paper and make two columns: What I can act on and What I cannot resolve today. Put one specific, modest action in the first column—a phone call, a page of reading, a question for the right person. Let the second column stay unresolved for now.

This is a reflection exercise, not a promise that effort will fix everything. It is a way to choose a useful next step without pretending to control the outcome.

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The following are paid products from Brandon Burley, Project Forge Books and The Redemption Project. Purchases support our businesses. These selections are separate from Baba’s interview; no guest endorsement is implied.

Preview: a steadier way through Scripture

Walking Through the Word: One Story. One Savior. One Faithful God. by Brandon Burley offers 52 weekly steps through Scripture’s connected story. For readers who know individual Bible stories but want to see how they fit together, it is designed to support a sustained reading practice.

The Kindle edition is available for preorder, with a November 18, 2026 release date. This is a preorder, not immediate ebook access.

Preorder the Kindle edition on Amazon (paid link). As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Learn: say only what the evidence supports

Evidence Before Conclusions is our online course on separating records, claims and inference. One practical learning outcome is tracing a claim to its root source and stating a conclusion in proportion to the evidence. That matters when uncertainty makes a confident explanation especially tempting.

See the course and learning outcomes.

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What is one useful thing you can do while another question remains unanswered? You are welcome to reply without sharing anyone else’s private circumstances. Thank you for being part of The Redemption Project.

Listen: what does the first day feel like?

In Rhonda Paulsen: Changing the Way Foster Care Begins, the Isaiah 117 House founder describes the hours between removal and placement—and why a welcoming space, a meal, clean clothes and small choices matter. She also talks about supporting caseworkers and foster families.

This is a conversation about practical care, not a claim that every difficult problem has an easy solution. As you listen, ask: whose experience is missing from my first impression?

Watch or listen to Rhonda’s conversation

If you only open one link this week, make it that one. Content note: the episode discusses family separation, foster care and childhood trauma.

Try a three-question pause

Before deciding what someone needs, write down: What do I actually know? What am I assuming? What could I ask or verify next? Keep the answers separate. A confident explanation is not the same thing as an established fact.

You can use this with a news story, a workplace decision or a conversation about public services. The point is to slow the jump from observation to conclusion.

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These are paid products from Brandon Burley, Project Forge Books and The Redemption Project. Purchases support our businesses. They are separate from Isaiah 117 House; no endorsement or donation arrangement is implied.

Read: decisions, evidence and human consequences

Exploring Criminal Justice: The Basics of Ethics and Theory by Brandon Burley introduces policing, courts, corrections and the ethical questions that connect them. It asks readers to distinguish what a source establishes from what still needs checking. The IngramSpark page offers a contents preview and a paperback purchase option.

Preview the book or see purchase options

Learn: identify the next justified action

The Evidence Before Conclusions online course teaches learners to classify information, trace claims to root sources, and state conclusions in proportion to the evidence. One practical outcome: documenting the next justified action instead of treating an unanswered question as permission to guess. Digital course access is currently $50.

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What ordinary act of care made a difficult transition easier for you? You can reply without sharing anyone else’s private story. Thank you for reading The Redemption Project.

This week’s TRP update begins with a question worth carrying into any conversation about recovery or justice: what would make the next step possible? A hopeful answer should be specific enough to do something with.

Start with a conversation

In From Addiction a…

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Looking for your next read—or a useful resource for your study group or classroom? Here are three different places to start. Each serves a different kind of reader.

For tonight: a home that knows too much

SAFEHOUSE: The Complete Prot…

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I thought I had found a better alternative to checkout charity. Then I realized the person serving me might be the one paying for my generosity.

COMMENTARY | BRANDON L. BURLEY

It happens so often now that most of us probably barely notice it.

You buy groceries, order lunch or pick up something at a store. Before the receipt appears, the screen asks whether…

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By Brandon Burley

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Ask Tennessee politicians a familiar question about policing and privacy and the answers usually fall into familiar partisan camps.

Automated license-plate readers are complicating that map.

A series of responses obtained by The Redemption Project shows elected Republican lawmakers, a Democratic congressional candidate and an independent candidate expressing overlapping concern about government networks capable of recording when and where ordinary vehicles pass cameras.

They are not members of an organized coalition.

They do not agree on whether plate readers should be banned.

They do not agree on how long data should exist.

They do not even agree on whether a warrant should govern every search.

What they increasingly share is discomfort with the idea that government should continuously collect the movements of people who are not suspected of crimes simply because technology makes it inexpensive to do so.

That is a different political argument from whether police should be allowed to search for a stolen car.

And it is beginning to produce proposals from places that rarely share a policy table.

Reneau’s first choice is a ban

State Rep. Michele Reneau, a Republican representing District 27, used some of the strongest language in responses obtained by TRP. The General Assembly identifies Reneau as a Republican from Signal Mountain.

“Networks like Flock Safety (or other similar companies), don’t just watch suspects — they track every car, every driver, every trip, whether you’re a criminal or a grandmother driving to church,” Reneau wrote. “That’s not law enforcement, that’s mass surveillance.”

Reneau said she would co-sponsor legislation banning the systems, although she expects whatever legislation ultimately advances may instead impose guardrails.

“My first preference is that we do not permit mass surveillance,” she said.

That puts prohibition at one end of the emerging policy spectrum.

Fritts would put a warrant between police and a search

State Rep. Monty Fritts, another Republican, gave TRP a shorter answer.

“Only with a warrant,” Fritts said. “All searches should require a warrant.”

Fritts represents District 32 and is identified by the General Assembly as a Republican.

The apparent simplicity raises implementation questions.

Would a real-time stolen-car alert constitute a “search” requiring a warrant?

What about an Amber Alert?

A missing person with dementia?

A car connected to an active shooting?

Those are the details lawmakers would have to resolve if a warrant rule becomes actual statutory language.

But Fritts’ baseline is clear: location searches should not occur simply because an officer has database access.

Hulsey already tried to put the concept into law

State Rep. Bud Hulsey told TRP he ran legislation last session to impose “4th amendment requirements,” limited retention and restrictions on data sharing.

“We are fast becoming a surveillance State,” Hulsey wrote.

This one can be tested against the legislative record.

Hulsey sponsored HB2608, the Protecting Everyone from Excessive Police Surveillance Act—the PEEPS Act.

The bill would have restricted government access to databases revealing historical location data. Among other provisions, it generally required a search warrant rather than a subpoena for access in a felony investigation, while creating exceptions for consent, stolen vehicles, exigent circumstances and specified administrative uses.

The bill also contemplated short retention periods and access controls.

It did not become law.

The House measure was taken off notice in the Criminal Justice Subcommittee on March 25.

So Hulsey’s characterization that he pursued guardrails is supported.

The General Assembly did not enact them.

Russell wants a system that can still find people in danger

State Rep. Lowell Russell’s response illustrates why the emerging opposition cannot be reduced to “ban versus no ban.”

Russell told TRP he wants legislation protecting “individual liberty, privacy and fiscal responsibility” while preserving the ability to find dementia patients, kidnappers and serious violent criminals.

He said he hopes Tennessee lands on “a closed warrant based system with a traditional law enforcement form of approach.”

The General Assembly identifies Russell as a Republican representing District 21.

That is not an argument that ALPR technology has no legitimate use.

It is an argument that the use should look more like a specific police investigation than an open-ended intelligence database.

Baum’s answer is simpler

State Rep. Charlie Baum, District 37, told TRP:

“I’m opposed to these cameras.”

That position leaves details still to be established—whether Baum means all ALPR deployment, networked fixed systems specifically or particular uses of them.

Those follow-up distinctions should be obtained before converting a one-sentence response into a comprehensive policy platform.

Candidates outside the Republican legislature are raising the same concern differently

Michaela Barnett’s congressional campaign has taken a more categorical position than several of the legislators.

In its response to TRP, the campaign characterized networked ALPR systems as unconstitutional mass surveillance and said it favors a federal ban.

If a ban cannot be enacted, the campaign said retention should be no longer than seven days and searches should require warrants.

Independent candidate Jacob Anders likewise told TRP he does not support deployment of Flock Safety or similar networked ALPR systems.

Anders proposed an even shorter ordinary retention window.

“Retention beyond 48 hours should only be permitted for specific records tied directly to an active criminal investigation supported by documented reasonable suspicion or probable cause,” he wrote in response to TRP’s federal privacy survey.

Those proposals differ substantially.

Seven days is not 48 hours.

A federal ban is not a state warrant rule.

Reasonable suspicion is not identical to probable cause.

But the underlying concern crosses ideological boundaries: passive collection can produce a historical map of ordinary people’s movements before police have any reason to suspect them.

This is not yet a coalition

It would be easy to call this a strange left-right alliance.

That goes too far.

There is no evidence these respondents are organizing together, backing the same bill or even defining the constitutional problem identically.

Reneau’s preferred answer is prohibition.

Fritts emphasizes warrants.

Hulsey’s actual bill allowed specified exceptions and focused heavily on historical location data.

Russell expressly wants police to retain tools for missing people and serious violent crime.

Barnett’s campaign favors a federal ban.

Anders proposes a 48-hour baseline.

The convergence is on the question.

Not yet the answer.

Knox County may have changed the statewide argument

The issue also became less theoretical this week.

Knox County Commission unanimously passed an emergency ordinance prohibiting county-operated fixed ALPRs while preserving deputy-operated mobile readers under narrower conditions.

The ordinance also addresses drones and circumvention through outside data sources.

That gives Tennessee lawmakers something they did not have several months ago:

A local-government model already in force.

Whether legislators copy it, narrow it or reject it will reveal what this emerging skepticism actually means.

The real legislative choices

If the General Assembly takes up ALPR legislation again, the consequential questions are likely to be more specific than whether Tennessee “supports Flock.”

They include:

Should fixed readers continuously collect plates not connected to criminal suspicion?

How quickly should ordinary records disappear?

Should historical searches require a warrant?

What emergency exceptions apply?

May agencies share databases automatically?

Can federal agencies access the data?

May a Tennessee agency ask another jurisdiction to conduct a search Tennessee law would forbid it from performing?

Does a vendor merely log improper searches—or must the software technically prevent them?

Should a private company be able to retain or analyze location information after a government customer deletes it?

Those questions can produce very different laws even among politicians who all say they oppose “mass surveillance.”

And that is why the current agreement across Tennessee’s political lines should not be exaggerated.

It should be watched.

Government surveillance is creating unusual overlap.

The next legislative session will show whether that overlap is strong enough to produce an actual rule.

I am a retired detective and criminal justice / government educator based in Tennessee. I founded The Redemption Project, as a place to focus on civics, rebuild non-partisan trust, and provide educational and emotional grace while learning about the news. I also have a column in Knox TN Today. My reporting and commentary have also appeared in other outlets including; Governing, The Arizona Capitol Times, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Police1, among other state and regional outlets.

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BEHIND THE REPORTING

Response matrix

Michele Reneau — elected state representative
Preferred: ban.
Fallback: strong guardrails.

Monty Fritts — elected state representative

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By Brandon Burley | The Redemption Project

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — More than 160 East Tennessee clergy and faith leaders are challenging Knox County’s expanded role in federal immigration enforcement.

A video r…

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By Brandon Burley | The Redemption Project

WASHINGTON COUNTY, Tenn. — Nearly two years after Hurricane Helene carried Nancy Tucker away from her East Tennessee home,…

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We often assume that if two people experience the same institution differently, one of them must be wrong. Policing offers a harder possibility: Sometimes both are telling the truth.

COMMENTARY | BRANDON L. BURLEY

I recently spoke at a narcotics recovery meeting.

I went into that room as a retired detective.

Many of the people there had experienced law enforcement from a very different side of the badge.

As we talked, several shared bad experiences they had previously had with police. Some of those experiences had clearly shaped how they viewed law enforcement.

I did not go there to convince them they were wrong.

I did not ask them to like police.

They did not ask me to dislike police.

I talked about the human side of the profession. I listened to the human side of their experiences. More importantly, we talked about recovery, second chances and the fact that their lives still matter.

Nobody had to surrender their history for that conversation to happen.

I left still believing deeply in good law enforcement.

They were free to leave still believing that some of their encounters with law enforcement had been wrong.

Those things could exist in the same room.

That experience reminded me of a problem much larger than policing.

We have become very good at asking people which side they are on.

We have become less comfortable asking what happened to them.

The same blue lights

A police cruiser pulls onto a residential street.

One person looks through the window and feels relieved.

Someone called.

Help arrived.

A few houses away, another person sees the same blue lights and feels their stomach tighten.

Same car.

Same uniform.

Same department.

Different history.

Our political culture often insists that one of those reactions must be wrong.

I am not convinced that is true.

The better question may be:

What happened to you that made you see it that way?

The person who sees safety is not naïve

Imagine someone whose experiences with law enforcement have mostly been positive.

Their home was burglarized, and an officer came.

Their teenager crashed a car, and a deputy stayed until help arrived.

Their elderly parent wandered away, and police helped find them.

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Creator Tools | First Look

By Brandon L. Burley

Disclosure: Auphonic provided The Redemption Project with 20 hours of one-time promot…

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By Brandon L. Burley, M.P.A.
The Redemption Project Newsroom
Commentary

As a retired detective, I have used Flock.

I was there when automated license plate readers first came into my area. T…

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The Redemption Project Newsroom

I asked readers a simple question.

When CNN, ABC and NBC decided not to carry President Donald Trump’s July 16 speech live, was that good journalism or censorship?

The answers split quickly.

Some readers called it censorship. Their argument was direct: He is the president. Let the public hear him. Let citize…

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By Brandon Burley
The Redemption Project Newsroom

As a Detective, when I first encountered automated license plate reader technology in law enforcement, I understood the appeal.

If a crime happened in a specific place at a specific time, the tool could help investigators identify vehicles that passed nearby. It could help locate a stolen car. It …

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Money is damaging American elections.

Not always by breaking the law.

That part matters.

A lot of the money moving through modern politics is legal. Super PACs can raise and spend large sums. Independent groups can support or oppose candidates. Wealthy donors, corporations, unions, nonprofits and poli…

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With early voting approaching in Tennessee’s Republican primary for governor, front-runner Marsha Blackburn is facing renewed questions over debates, media access and whether voters will get to compare the candidates directly before casting ballots.

Blackburn, a sitting U.S. senator, is running against Republican opponents including U.S. Rep. John Rose a…

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By Brandon Burley
The Redemption Project Newsroom

Tennessee has several child-related controversies moving at once.

One involves seriously sick immigrant children enrolled in a state health program. Another involves federal civil-rights complaints accusing the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services of failures involving children with disabilities, placements, removals, records and family rights. Others involve broader litigation and federal scrutiny around Tennessee’s foster-care and juvenile-justice systems.

They are separate cases, with different agencies, statutes and legal questions.

But they raise a shared public concern: whether Tennessee’s child-serving systems can provide care, process and accountability when the stakes are highest.

It is easy to sort the stories by category.

Immigrant children. Foster children. Disabled children. Children in state custody. Children in health programs. Children whose parents are accused of neglect. Children in facilities. Children in court.

That is how systems sort people.

It is not how the public should think about them first.

Before the category, there is the child.

That is the point Tennessee needs to sit with.

This is not a legal-versus-illegal story. It is not a partisan story. It cannot be reduced to one lawmaker, one lawsuit, one agency letter or one court order.

It is a care story.

And care is one of the hardest tests of government.

Government is not the family. It is not the church. It is not the neighbor, the doctor or the foster parent sitting at a kitchen table trying to calm a child after a placement move.

But government still has duties.

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Yesterday, you saw the newsroom put out this article: “Federal license plate reader proposal reopens debate over public safety, privacy and local control”, here’s my take on it.

by Brandon Burley and The Redemption Project

Automated license plate readers are useful public safety tools.

They are also systems for collecting location data.

Both things can be…

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By Brandon Burley
The Redemption Project Newsroom

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A Tennessee judge has temporarily blocked the state from reporting identifying information about roughly 400 seriously sick and disabled immigrant children to immigration authorities.

That sentence is going to make people choose teams before they think.

Some will hear “immigrant children” and assume the state is cruel.

Others will hear “not lawfully present” and assume the doctors are helping people break the law.

That is the trap.

The real story is harder, more human and more important than the slogans.

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Military service carries deep meaning in American life.

Honor.

Duty.

Sacrifice.

Family legacy.

National obligation.

But support for the military is not the same as support for a military draft.

That difference sits at the center of one of the most attention-grabbing questions in the new national registered-voter poll from Overton Insights.

The poll asked: “If President Trump implemented a military draft, would you support or oppose it?”

Overall, 11% said they would strongly support it. Another 14% said they would somewhat support it.

On the other side, 7% said they would somewhat oppose it, and 59% said they would strongly oppose it.

Another 9% were not sure or had no opinion.

Put simply, 25% supported the idea, while 66% opposed it.

That is not mild hesitation.

That is broad resistance to one of the strongest powers government can exercise over a citizen’s life

A draft is different from supporting the troops

The United States has a long tradition of honoring military service.

That does not mean Americans want compulsory military service.

A draft is not a parade.

It is not a bumper sticker.

It is not thanking a veteran at a ballgame.

A draft is the government telling citizens they may be required to serve in war.

That changes the conversation immediately.

A person can respect the military and oppose a draft.

A person can support national defense and oppose forced service.

A person can believe some wars are necessary and still want a very high burden of proof before government compels citizens to fight them.

Those positions are not contradictions.

They are evidence that Americans often separate respect for service from trust in political leaders to demand service.

That separation matters.

Opposition was broad

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