Mexican National Serving Decades for Murder Sues Trump

Luis Cornelio
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Mexican National Serving Decades for Murder Sues Trump

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) An illegal alien is claiming that his reputation was destroyed, not because he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, but because President Donald Trump highlighted his criminal case to condemn illegal immigration.

Ortiz-Vite, who is serving 39 to 102 years after pleading guilty in connection with the killing of Ruby Garcia, filed a handwritten federal lawsuit against President Donald Trump for $75 million after Trump used his case during the 2024 presidential campaign.

The Mexican national is also seeking a public apology from Trump and U.S. citizenship, claiming the president’s remarks about his case caused him humiliation and reputational harm, according to Fox News.

Ortiz-Vite drew national condemnation after he was arrested in connection with Garcia’s brutal killing. Garcia’s body, which had suffered gunshot wounds, was found dumped alongside a road in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in March 2024. At the time of her death, she was in a relationship with Ortiz-Vite.

As first reported by Fox News, Ortiz-Vite is representing himself in the lawsuit and named Trump and White House spokesman Steven Cheung as defendants.

As noted by the outlet, Trump previously highlighted Ortiz-Vite as an example of “America’s problem” in connection with illegal immigration. Ortiz-Vite was featured in campaign advertisements criticizing illegal immigration alongside other illegal aliens convicted of heinous crimes.

But Ortiz-Vite now claims he was the victim of political targeting.

“I was put into a category. Who I was as a person no longer mattered! What only mattered was my race,” Ortiz-Vite wrote, according to Fox News. “My case and immigration status! Once again, it belittled me, shattered my dignity and what I was as a person.”

He implied the attention brought “shame” to his family name.

“The shame it brought to my family name is a reality I have to live with now,” Ortiz-Vite wrote. “I took full responsibility for my actions but for them to use my case for political gain on TV was unjust. Humiliating. When I thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. I was center stage in front of a nation, public scrutiny at its finest!”

Without mentioning Garcia, Ortiz-Vite lamented that his criminal case became a national headline.

“It all became clear to me when I first met with my court-appointed attorneys. They explained how my case had now gotten blown out of proportion and was now a high-profile case!” he wrote. “The shock in their eyes and the tears from mine were a reaction to my realization that I was living everyone’s worst nightmare! To be publicly infamous—a target! To the United States of America, from here everything went downhill. I was now labeled a cold-blooded murderer in the eyes of the people of this nation.”

He continued that the “anxiety and despair” he experienced compared to “no other.”

His lawsuit is likely to go nowhere, as courts typically review grievances filed by inmates before allowing them to proceed, according to Fox News. The illegal alien allegedly failed to cite any specific laws in the lawsuit.

Appeals Court Rejects Biden’s Bid to Block Release of Recordings of Ghostwriter Interviews

Headline USA Editor
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Appeals Court Rejects Biden’s Bid to Block Release of Recordings of Ghostwriter Interviews

(Headline USA) A federal appeals court has rejected a request by Joe Biden to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of his interviews with a memoir ghostwriter before he was elected president.

A divided three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit suspended its decision until Aug. 3 to allow more time for Biden to consider another appeal.

The panel’s 2-1 ruling late Monday found there is a “substantial” public interest in disclosing the material that Biden wants to keep under wraps. Redactions to the recordings would help protect Biden’s privacy, the majority noted.

“We conclude that any remaining incursion on personal privacy from disclosure of the now-redacted materials likely does not outweigh the public interest in disclosure,” the ruling says.

Judge Florence Pan, who was nominated by Biden, a Democrat, wrote a dissenting opinion in which she said Biden has shown a “substantial privacy interest” in keeping the material hidden.

“The conversations at issue took place in Biden’s home, and the recordings of them were obtained by the government in the course of a criminal investigation that did not lead to an indictment,” she wrote.

The appeal also was heard by D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and Judge Gregory Katsas. Srinivasan was nominated by President Barack Obama, a Democrat who chose Biden as his vice president. Katsas was nominated by President Donald Trump, a Republican who as president lost to Biden in 2020 but was elected again to the White House in 2024.

Mark Zwonitzer, who worked with Biden on two memoirs, 2007’s “Promises to Keep” and 2017’s “Promise Me, Dad,” interviewed him at his home in 2016 and 2017. Biden’s lawyers say the conversations were candid, personal and intended to remain private.

Biden spokesperson T.J. Ducklo said the former president disagrees with the ruling but “respects the courts and the vital role an independent judiciary plays in a healthy democracy.”

“President Biden’s conversations for a book a decade ago that discussed his late son are private, and were provided to the Department of Justice on the express condition they stay that way,” Ducklo said in a statement. “Reversing course and making them public is just the latest example of this administration weaponizing the (Justice Department) for political retribution.”

The recordings were obtained by special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents from his time as a senator from Delaware and as Obama’s vice president. Republicans in Congress demanded the material after Hur declined to file charges against the then-president.

Biden sued and sought an injunction to prevent the Justice Department under Trump from releasing the recordings to Congress and the conservative Heritage Foundation. The department previously argued that the recordings were exempt from disclosure under public records law.

Biden appealed after U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, who was nominated by Trump, ruled in June that the public interest in the material outweighed whatever privacy rights Biden had.

Pan noted that the majority is effectively ruling in favor of immediately disclosing the material by denying Biden’s request for an injunction pending appeal.

“That, of course, will moot this case,” she wrote.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

The Gates Foundation Met with Epstein About 30 Times

Headline USA Editor
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The Gates Foundation Met with Epstein About 30 Times

(Headline USA) Bill Gates and the staff of his charitable foundation met with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein more than two dozen times even as employees expressed concerns about the reputational risk of working with him, an external review commissioned by the Gates Foundation found.

The conversations appeared to focus on a public health fund that never materialized and a grant to the International Peace Institute, which was run by an associate of Epstein.

The roughly 30 meetings, which took place from 2011 to 2014, included several visits to Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse and one meeting on the Gates Foundation campus, according to the review by law firm WilmerHale. The review found no evidence the foundation paid Epstein or did anything illegal. The foundation released a three-page summary of WilmerHale’s report Tuesday and did not say if it would release the full version.

Gates, who chairs the Gates Foundation, has not been accused in connection with Epstein’s crimes and has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Epstein’s abuse of girls. He told a congressional committee last month that he made a “grave error in judgment” by meeting with the disgraced financier.

Gates’ name appears in the trove of documents released by the Justice Department as part of its Epstein probe. The Epstein files include the names of powerful men across tech, finance, politics and business, all of whom have denied involvement in Epstein’s crimes.

Epstein was federally indicted in July 2019 on charges of sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. He died by suicide while awaiting trial.

The release of the Gates Foundation summary follows last week’s revelation that Warren Buffett, a longtime friend of Gates who has put the majority of his charitable gifts toward the tech billionaire’s philanthropy, omitted the Gates Foundation from his annual donations this year. Buffett explained that the decision was more about his belief that his three children are ready to manage his fortune than it was about Gates’ “distasteful” association with Epstein.

That association began when an adviser to both the foundation and Gates’ personal office introduced the two men, according to the review. Three years earlier, Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor.

Epstein recommended that Gates establish a charitable investment fund to pool wealthy individuals’ gifts for global public health. Staff followed up with Epstein at Gates’ request on the legal considerations and tax benefits to donors.

Those discussions led to a December 2014 breakfast at Epstein’s Manhattan residence with Gates, foundation staff and potential donors. Gates concluded that Epstein had “misrepresented” the donors’ willingness to contribute, according to the review, and the foundation stopped working on the concept.

Epstein also brought together Gates and the head of a nonprofit that would eventually receive money from the foundation. In 2012, the review concluded, Epstein introduced Gates to Terje Rød-Larsen, then the president of the International Peace Institute. The Gates Foundation reached a grant agreement the following year with the International Peace Institute related to polio eradication. Rød-Larsen resigned in 2020 over his connections to Epstein.

Throughout their interactions, according to the review, Gates knew about Epstein’s sex offense and heard concerns about their association from staff working with Epstein on the charitable investment fund.

Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman said the board has approved measures that will strengthen their vetting process and risk management.

“The work we do depends on integrity and earning and maintaining the trust of partners,” Suzman said in a press release. The foundation offered no further comment.

WilmerHale noted that its five-month review did not include access to Gates’ personal communications or encompass Epstein’s interactions with Gates in a personal capacity.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

FBI: Suspect in Federal Building Attack was Anti-ICE ‘Extremist’

Headline USA Editor
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FBI: Suspect in Federal Building Attack was Anti-ICE ‘Extremist’

(Chris Wade, The Center Square) A man arrested by federal agents Monday for starting a large blaze outside a New York City immigration court was an “anti-government extremist” who told law enforcement officials he was willing to injure or kill people, authorities said.

Andrew Arrabaca, 43, of Poughkeepsie, was taken into custody outside 26 Federal Plaza early Monday morning after authorities said he allegedly ignited a gas fire at the entrance of the building and set off fireworks before firing pellets from an airsoft rifle. 

The building houses dozens of agencies, including the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

James Barnacle, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York field office, said the suspect had a cache of weapons, including axes, a hammer, a machete, knives, and other incendiary devices in a wheeled beach cart with an “ICE Off Our Streets” sign attached.

Barnacle said he told authorities that he was “targeting the building and he was okay if he hurt or killed people going in and out of the building, whether they were federal employees or civilians.” 

“He made several anti-government and anti-ICE statements during the incident,” Barnacle told reporters at a Monday afternoon briefing. “While further details cannot be shared at this time, investigators have found no indication of an ongoing threat to the public.”

Barnacle said Arrabaca served in the U.S. Army for several years as a mechanic on Patriot missile systems, and said he was known to local law enforcement as a frequent demonstrator outside of the federal building. 

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the attack “deeply disturbing” and said he was relieved no one was seriously injured and that a suspect is in custody.” 

My team is in touch with the NYPD and we will support the federal investigation,” he posted on social media. “Our administration will continue to ensure that every New Yorker is safe in their city — and hold accountable any who threaten that.” 

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security called Arrabaca an “anti-ICE rioter” and said a federal Protective Security Officer “swiftly tackled and detained the agitator, sustaining minor injuries during the incident. 

“Officers quickly recovered the individual’s bag, which contained what appeared to be two pellet guns and a manifesto,” DHS posted on social media.

Immigration enforcement actions in courthouses have been a flashpoint in pushback to President Donald Trump’s administration enforcing the law. Advocates, court officials and even some judges have been accused of resisting attempts by ICE to apprehend suspects who show up for court hearings.

In New York City, the ICE facility at 26 Federal Plaza has become ground zero in Democrats’ push against what they say is unlawful overreach by federal immigration agents. It’s one of 25 ICE Enforcement and Removal Operation facilities across the country. Democrats and advocates have held protests and press briefings outside the building to criticize ICE enforcement tactics.

In April, a federal judge banned most arrests by ICE agents in several New York City immigration courts, siding with civil liberties groups that sued to stop the practice. Despite U.S. District Court judge Kevin Castel’s ruling, ICE has made at least six arrests in Manhattan immigration courts since he issued his order, city officials said.

Trump’s Border Czar Tom Homan has pledged to target New York City over its sanctuary policies that restrict local cooperation with federal immigration crackdowns and a law signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul that expands many of those policies statewide. 

Trump Vows Retaliation for U.S. Service Members’ Deaths

Headline USA Editor
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Trump Vows Retaliation for U.S. Service Members’ Deaths

(Sarah Roderick-Fitch, The Center Square) For a 10th consecutive night, the U.S. is carrying out strikes on Iran, targeting the Islamic Republic’s ability to attack commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Following the announcement of three U.S. service members killed in action resulting from Iranian strikes, President Donald Trump threatened to come back hard on the Islamic Republic in retribution for the deaths.

“Every time Iran kills an American soldier they will pay for that killing many times over! This directive has been passed on to Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Daniel Caine, and every leader in the military,” the president wrote on Truth Social Monday afternoon.

Despite the U.S. strikes against Iran, the Islamic Republic doesn’t appear to be letting up from aggression in the Strait of Hormuz or its attacks on Gulf neighbors, including strikes on Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq and Bahrain, home of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

In addition to the U.S. striking Iranian military targets in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump reinstated a full naval blockade on Iranian ports, which the administration estimates is costing the Iranian economy between $400 million and $500 million a day in losses.

The continued strikes come as the president is reportedly weighing options to intensify strikes against Iran, targeting infrastructure and energy structures.

The Trump administration has requested $87.6 billion from Congress to cover the costs of the conflict, including more than $70 billion for military expenses, according to a White House supplemental appropriations request.

COVID Researchers Suspected of Being FBI Informants

Ken Silva
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COVID Researchers Suspected of Being FBI Informants

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) EcoHealth Alliance founder Peter Daszak and recently retired university professor Ralph Baric were both collaborators with the Wuhan Virology Institute in China—where COVID-19 is suspected by some researchers to have originated.

Daszak and Baric may also have been FBI informants, according to an April 2025 letter from Sen. Rand Paul, which his office released Tuesday.

In the letter, Paul asks then-DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz about Daszak and Baric’s relationship to the FBI.

“I request that your office determine whether Dr. Daszak or Dr. Baric have ever been designated, utilized, or compensated as a [confidential human source] or [confidential informant] for the FBI or any other DOJ component,” Paul asked in his letter.

“If so, please assess the circumstances of that designation, including the nature of their role, the timeframe of any such relationship, and any intersection with federally funded research or programs implicating national security or public health.”

Sen. Paul sought a response from the DOJ-OIG by July 14, 2025. It’s unclear he ever received one. Neither his office nor the DOJ-OIG immediately responded to a Headline USA inquiry about the matter. The FBI declined to comment.

Sen. Paul released his letter a day after publishing other records, which show that the FBI protected Daszak from being interviewed by the Customs and Border Protection’s “tactical terrorism response team” in February 2021, when he was returning from China after participating in the WHO origins-of-COVID investigation.

Customs officials were apparently curious as to why Daszak was investigating the origins of COVID given his conflicts of interest. In 2014, Daszak and his firm were the recipients of the infamous $3.7 million National Institutes of Health grant for “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” That grant allegedly funded risky gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which some, including White House officials, think led to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Baric, who retired from his job as an epidemiology professor at the University of North Carolina last month, has also been described in legal disputes as a “close collaborator with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” In a 2021 press release, Paul’s office specifically cited Baric’s collaboration with Wuhan-based virologist Shi Zhengli, alleging the two worked to create “super viruses.”

The FBI and some other intelligence officials had surmised since early 2020 that COVID-19 likely came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It’s unclear whether Daszak and Baric—who both publicly argued that COVID was a natural disease—were part of the FBI’s assessment. However, Congress revealed in early 2024 that Baric was still communicating with an FBI agent at the time.

According to a January 2024 report from journalists Michael Shellenberger and Alex Gutentag, an FBI informant in China also told their handler at the bureau’s Chinese Intelligence Squad that COVID came from the Wuhan lab.

“The [informant] was from Wuhan, had been vetted, and the person had provided information on three prior occasions that they were able to corroborate as true and reliable,” an unnamed person told Shellenberger and Gutentag.

Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

Israel Has No Interest in Joining US Attacks on Iran

Headline USA Editor
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Israel Has No Interest in Joining US Attacks on Iran

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Tuesday said it was “best” for Israel to stay out of the current conflict between the US and Iran, as the US continues bombing the Islamic Republic, and Iranian missiles and drones continue to target bases in Arab states across the region but have so far spared Israel.

“The State of Israel has no interest in joining the contained confrontation between Iran and the United States — the current situation is the best one for us,” Smotrich said at a conference marking the 2005 withdrawal of settlements from Gaza, where he and other Israeli officials push for the resettlement of the Palestinian territory.

Smotrich made the comments after four US soldiers were killed in the war, including three in an Iranian attack on a base in Jordan and one who died during a controlled detonation of an unexploded Iranian drone, according to the US military.

Israel has stayed out of the war since the US renewed the bombing campaign despite the fact that, according to the official State Department rationale, the US launched the conflict “at the request” of Israel. Smotrich said that Israel still sought regime change in Iran, something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told President Donald Trump would happen if he launched the war.

“[We] must remember that the ultimate goal of Israel, and not necessarily the United States, is to undermine and weaken the regime in Iran – to the point of overthrowing it,” Smotrich said, according to Middle East Eye, adding that destroying Iran’s economy is the best path toward that goal.

“Currently, inflation in Iran is at 85 percent, food inflation of over 134 percent in a total of four months, and the Iranian rial is trading at an exchange rate of 1.9 million to the dollar – and it’s going up,” he said.

Smotrich reaffirmed that the “current situation is good for us, and there’s no point in pushing ourselves inward.”

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that while Israel hasn’t been directly striking Iran, it has been supporting the war by providing the US with intelligence and in other ways. The report said that Israel’s less visible role was “a blessing for Israelis” since it “reduces the risk of casualties and allows daily life to continue largely as normal, without midnight sirens, trips to bomb shelters or major disruptions.”

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.

NYT: Pentagon Withheld Dozens of Military Injuries from Iran Attacks

Headline USA Editor
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NYT: Pentagon Withheld Dozens of Military Injuries from Iran Attacks

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) The New York Times reported on Monday that the Pentagon didn’t disclose that US troops had been injured by Iranian attacks on Jordan in the week leading up to the missile strikes that killed at least two US soldiers and left one missing.

US officials told the Times that in the days before the deadly January 17 attack, Iranian strikes on US facilities in Jordan injured dozens of US service members and damaged multiple US military helicopters.

Throughout that same week, US Central Command released multiple statements on the US airstrikes against Iran and other military operations but made no mention of the injuries, following a pattern of the US hiding casualties throughout the war.

A day after the deadly attack in Jordan, another US soldier was killed in Iraq during what CENTCOM called “a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone,” bringing the total number of US troops killed in the war in recent days to at least four, a number that includes the soldier missing in Jordan as CENTCOM said it found remains it was working to identify.

The US military identified the other two US Army soldiers killed in Jordan, which included a 19-year-old woman, Pvt. Isabella Gonzales of Carrollton, Texas, who died on Friday. The other soldier, 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, died of his wounds on Saturday.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell initially rejected the Times’ report as “baseless and malicious” but then acknowledged that nearly 100 US troops have been injured in the war since July 7, though he downplayed the injuries.

“While nearly 100 service members were deemed to have some degree of injury since July 7, 2026, 96% have returned duty. They are determined to get back in the fight,” Parnell wrote on X. “The vast majority of injuries experienced were minor concussions. Further updates will be posted on the Defense Casualty Analysis System.”

According to the Pentagon’s numbers, at least 18 US service members have been killed, and more than 500 have been wounded in the Iran war since President Trump launched it on February 28.

US and Israeli attacks on Iran in that time have killed around 3,500 Iranians, including more than 50 since the US renewed strikes several weeks ago. In April, Iranian officials said nearly half of those killed were civilians, including the 120 school children killed in the US bombing of an elementary school in Minab, southern Iran.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.

White House Shares Three-Week-Old Poll That Shows the Majority of Americans Support Iran Peace Deal

Headline USA Editor
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White House Shares Three-Week-Old Poll That Shows the Majority of Americans Support Iran Peace Deal

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) The White House on Monday shared the results of a poll from about three weeks ago that shows the majority of American voters supported the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which President Donald Trump has since declared is “over” as he has restarted the bombing campaign against Iran.

President Trump also shared the results of the survey from Big Data Poll, which found that 60.4% of American voters supported the MoU, 23.7% opposed it, and 15.9% were unsure.

The poll shows overwhelming support among Trump voters, with 76.7% supporting the MoU, and a slim majority of Kamala Harris voters (50.1%) also supporting the deal.

“TRUST IN TRUMP: Voters Overwhelmingly Support Iran Peace Deal,” the White House said on X, a post that came after the US concluded its ninth consecutive night of airstrikes against Iran and Iranian retaliatory drone and missile attacks continued to target US bases across the region.

When the poll was conducted, administration officials were defending the MoU and the idea of diplomacy with Iran in general, but since the restarting of the airstrikes, Trump has been threatening to escalate the war. Hours after he shared the results of the poll, the president threatened more strikes on Iran if more US troops were killed, as four US soldiers died in the war since Friday.

“Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over! This directive has been passed on to Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Daniel Caine, and every Leader in the Military,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com. 

Class Action Lawsuit Accuses Apple Of Selling Fake Privacy

Jose Nino
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Class Action Lawsuit Accuses Apple Of Selling Fake Privacy

(José Niño, Headline USA) Apple has spent years selling itself as the privacy company, but a fresh lawsuit contends that one of its flagship privacy tools was essentially a vault with the door hanging loose. As Reclaim the Net tells it, a customer in California claims Apple went on charging for protection that was never truly in place.

This week Anthony Alvarez brought a proposed class action against the company, claiming it pocketed money for privacy it was never able to deliver. His filing arrives on the heels of reporting by Reclaim the Net showing that almost anybody can uncover the actual inbox sitting behind a Hide My Email alias, all because of a bug Apple has allowed to linger for over a year.

The tool is meant to serve as a barrier. Someone creates a random alias, passes it to an app or a newsletter, and Apple silently relays the incoming mail to the person’s real account while keeping it out of view. People who sign in with Apple get the stripped down version for free, while iCloud+ subscribers paying as little as $0.99 a month can mint aliases for whatever sites they like. In sum, the selling point is anonymity one can lease.

That guarantee came apart once Tyler Murphy, who co-founded EasyOptOuts, figured out how to follow an alias back to its true address and handed Apple the whole thing, replication steps and all, in June 2025. As Reclaim the Net points out, 404 Media verified the flaw using one of its own aliases and found that every Hide My Email address it examined could be traced to the genuine owner. The publication is keeping the technical specifics under wraps because the gap is still open.

After roughly a year of waiting on a fix that never showed up, Murphy chose to speak out. “Apple Hide My Email is leaking email addresses that are supposed to be hidden. We reported the issue and replication instructions to Apple over a year ago. We don’t know why it hasn’t been fixed, but we don’t feel comfortable waiting any longer. Hide My Email users deserve to know that it may be possible for attackers to discover their hidden email addresses,” he said.

Apple acknowledged his report a month after it landed. By March 2026, it told Murphy it had “addressed the reported issue in a recent system change,” yet the flaw kept working. Toward the end of May, the company claimed a fix was “expected in the coming weeks.” Murphy pressed Apple to halt the minting of new aliases until it could genuinely protect them, and the company gave no sign it would.

Murphy has been pointed about who bears the most risk from a leak. “Free, publicly accessible people-search sites make it easy to link an email address to other personal details, so people relying on Hide My Email for safety may be at risk,” he said. The people who lean hardest on a throwaway alias, those trying to stay ahead of a stalker or an abuser, are exactly the ones a leak harms soonest.

Alvarez converts that hazard into a bill. “Apple has known of the problem for over a year, and the flaw remains unfixed to this day—all while Apple continues to profit from Hide My Email and from its promises of privacy,” the complaint reads. He casts himself as “one of the millions of customers who paid Apple for iCloud+ and relied on Apple’s representations that Hide My Email would keep his personal email address hidden.”

The complaint contends that customers paid for privacy on two fronts. “Plaintiff and Class Members paid Apple for their privacy—iCloud+ subscribers though the price-premium built into iCloud+ subscription fees, and all Apple customers through the price premium built into Apple products that Apple markets as including enhanced privacy protections and features such as Hide My Email,” the filing states.

As Reclaim the Net lays out, the complaint stacks nine causes of action, among them breaches of California’s Unfair Competition Law, False Advertising Law, and Consumers Legal Remedies Act, together with fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract, breach of implied contract, breach of implied warranty of merchantability, and unjust enrichment. 

Alvarez is seeking damages, restitution, a jury trial, and “injunctive relief to ensure Apple ceases its deceptive conduct and either delivers the privacy protection it promised or clearly discloses that it cannot.” He is asking the court to certify four classes covering Apple device owners and iCloud+ subscribers, both nationwide and within California, with the combined claims pegged above $5 million.

José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino 

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