Last month, at around 10:30 on a Tuesday evening, I got an encrypted text message from someone calling himself “Tim.” It felt cloak and dagger — he sent me a link to a website that contained data compiled from public figures, airing their personal information.
It was far from the next Watergate. The site showed the Spotify listening habits of about 50 people — politicians, tech executives, journalists — scraped from information that they seemed to be unaware was public. To gild the lily, he called it the Panama Playlists, a riff on the decidedly more consequential Panama Papers leak of years past.
It was clever and, honestly, a bit funny. It showed that Vice President JD Vance listens to Justin Bieber and the Backstreet Boys — while making dinner, if the playlist’s title is any indication — and that the beloved weatherman Al Roker is really into Elton John (he appears to have played the track “Philadelphia Freedom” 151 times last year).
It got a little less funny, though, when I scrolled down and found myself, along with my colleague Kashmir Hill, on the list. If two reporters who write about technology and privacy for a living were sharing personal information without realizing it, how many others were doing the same?
Kashmir and I decided to get to the bottom of it. (You can read our story here.) In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain what we found.
Public figures, public playlists
The true identity of “Tim” is Riley Walz, a 23-year-old engineer who has a history of digging around for open sources of data and spinning them into public projects. The idea for this one, he told me, was not to make “some grand political statement,” but to call attention to how much of our information is sitting out there, available to anyone with the time and interest to surface it.
Walz made it clear that he wasn’t trying to paint any one type of person or political party negatively. He said his goal was to prod Spotify to improve its privacy controls, which make users’ playlists public by default. But he clearly had fun with it.
The playlist he surfaced for Pam Bondi, the Republican attorney general, plays with a temperature theme (she listens to Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” and Foreigner’s “Cold as Ice”). Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, had a playlist called “Galentines” featuring tracks from M.I.A., Rihanna and Gwen Stefani.
We should note, not all of the playlists in the leak have been confirmed as real. A dozen or so people in tech and media told us their listings were authentic, while most of the politicians didn’t get back to us. And at least one person, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, told us Walz’s entry on him was mistaken.
A long trail of data
The stakes of this leak were, admittedly, pretty low. I was embarrassed that people could see I listened to one song called “Huggin & Kissin” by a band called Big Black Delta 139 times this year (though I maintain that it is a very good song). But this was far from spilling state secrets; none of my bank account details were divulged, nor were my unsatisfactory high school grades made available for public scrutiny.
For me, the entire affair was a reminder that no matter how much I’ve grown accustomed to sharing online, there’s always more than I realize that’s sitting out in the ether, waiting to be discovered.
To be clear, I know that there’s plenty about me to be found on the internet, much of which I’ve shared willingly across social media. I post photos of concerts I’ve gone to on Instagram, and I treat my X account as a running commentary on the tech industry. But it’s all about context; there’s a difference between the curated parts of myself I show the public and the stuff I didn’t realize was being shared on my behalf.
Thankfully, I have good taste in music. Or at least I think so — take a look at my entry in the Panama Playlists and decide for yourself.
THE LATEST NEWS
Politics
The purge after the pardons: The Justice Department has fired or demoted more than two dozen prosecutors who were assigned to hold the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters accountable.
A top Democrat on a House investigative committee said most of the documents that the Justice Department had given Congress in the Jeffrey Epstein case were already public.
Restaurant owners in Washington say President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops has been terrible for business.
War in Ukraine
Today is Ukraine’s Independence Day. In a speech in Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky made a plea for peace.
Much of the fighting in Ukraine has been in the Donbas, a mineral-rich territory nearly the size of West Virginia. The fate of that region will be at the center of any peace negotiations.
Times reporters explain why the Donbas is so important to Ukraine and Russia. Watch the video.
Other Big Stories
Florida painted over a rainbow crosswalk that was part of a memorial to the 49 people killed in a 2016 shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
A tour bus crashed while traveling to New York City from Niagara Falls, N.Y., killing five people. Survivors described the ordeal.
In Pakistan, the crime of blaspheming Islam can carry a death sentence. Arrests are soaring, and many of the accused say they were entrapped online by extortionists.
THE SUNDAY DEBATE
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has mimicked Trump’s style on social media as a way of trolling the president. Is that the right move for Democrats?
Yes. Newsom’s trolling is effective in frustrating Republicans and demonstrating to Democrats a willingness to fight back. “The California governor may come off like a sleazy politician, but at least he’s our sleazy politician,” USA Today’s Sara Pequeño writes.
No. While Democrats may find Newsom funny, any incivility is bad for democracy. “There won’t be a bottom until Americans resurrect some ground rules and enforce them against any violators (even on their own side),” Steven Greenhut writes for The Orange County Register.
FROM OPINION
The left and the right have put too much focus on Epstein conspiracy theories. Doing so allows more Americans to lose faith in democracy, James Kirchick writes.
American spy novelists are comically bad at naming international characters. It’s time they consult native speakers, Michael Idov writes.
Here are columns by Maureen Dowd on Trump’s attack on the Smithsonian and Nicholas Kristof on appreciating the American wilderness.
MORNING READS
Travel smart: Can A.I. improve your vacation planning? Our writer put some tools to the test.
Climate change: In addition to looking beautiful, this nearly $300 million park also aims to shield Manhattan from rising seas.
How fast should kids throw? It’s a paradox for parents of youth baseball players.
Routine: Here’s how an environmental artist spends a day in her workshop.
Vows: A simple favor turned her “hot neighbor” into her husband.
Your pick: The most-clicked article in yesterday’s newsletter was five takeaways from the Justice Department’s interview of Ghislaine Maxwell.
Lives Lived: Ron Turcotte, a champion jockey who made racing history when he rode Secretariat to the 1973 Triple Crown, died at 84.
SPORTS
College football: The season began in Ireland, where No. 22 Iowa State overpowered No. 17 Kansas State.
M.L.B.: Baseball is getting a new trophy, beginning next year: the Relief Pitcher of the Year Award.
NASCAR: Ryan Blaney won the last race of the regular season in thrilling fashion, moving from 13th place to first in the final two laps.
N.F.L.: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety Shilo Sanders, son of the Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, was ejected from a preseason game for throwing a punch at the Buffalo Bills tight end Zach Davidson.
BOOK OF THE WEEK
“The Gods of New York,” by Jonathan Mahler: This biography of New York City in the late 1980s gives readers a panoramic view, from the top of the Twin Towers to the deepest subway station, then builds a track from a tumultuous time gone by to the one we’re in now. Mahler, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, shows how the era’s racial tensions paved the way for current crises; how AIDS activists reshaped conversations around public health; how homelessness was (and remains) frustratingly insurmountable; and how a local real estate developer made his way from Queens to the White House with a boost from tabloids and politicians. Most of all, “The Gods of New York” reminds us that, while boldface names form an ever-shifting scaffolding around the city, ordinary people are its bedrock.
This week’s subject for The Interview is the best-selling writer Jen Hatmaker, who, at 51, has gone through two middle-age crises: first when she fell out with the evangelical world that had made her a famous author and influencer, and then again when she learned that her pastor husband of 26 years was cheating on her. Her upcoming memoir, “Awake,” is the first time she has gone into detail publicly about the breakup of her marriage — a heartbreaking but ultimately hopeful process.
You start the book with this dramatic scene of realizing that your husband is being unfaithful. Can you tell me about the initial feelings of realizing that your husband was cheating on you?
That was the singular most shocking thing that has ever happened to me. We were pastors. We had been married for 26 years. We’d followed the rules. So there was this initial period of just grief and trauma. But as I started to work through that, I had to finally begin admitting this marriage was in trouble. For a while my preferred story was everything was great, he’s a terrible person, he ruined our family. That is to some degree true, but what is untrue is that everything was going great until it wasn’t.
You describe yourself in “Awake” as being codependent. How did codependency show up in your marriage?
I learned that codependency is essentially feeling and trying to become responsible for other people’s choices, feelings and life, and then allowing however they’re living their life to affect you. Purging myself of codependency has been one of the biggest and the heaviest lifts of the last five years. I’m doing terrible at it.
Have there been moments since you were divorced that made you feel like, yes, I am on my way to being a functional independent adult?
I was a teenage child bride and had never spent one minute of adulthood in independence. I’d never been to a movie by myself. I had never filed taxes. I had to build my own independent life because there was no one else to do it for me. Then I discovered I’m good at this. It’s like I woke up halfway through my life.
Read more of the interview here.
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE
THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …
Avoid getting caught up in “air rage.”
Treat back pain with these exercises.
Drink stream water on a hike with a little water filter.
Track your workouts.
MEAL PLAN
In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Margaux Laskey suggests easy, high-protein dishes. They include cowboy caviar that you can eat alongside grilled chicken, slow cooker chickpea stew with lemon and coconut, and baked chicken meatballs.
NOW TIME TO PLAY
Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was inveighed.
Can you put eight historical events — including the founding of the F.B.I., the creation of Central Park and the invention of the photocopier — in chronological order? Take this week’s Flashback quiz.
And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands.