⚠️ ICE documents obtained through a FOIA lawsuit show the agency: 🔺 Collected tens of millions of voter records 🔺 Considered sending undercover agents to go after voting nonprofits 🔺 Weighed investigating voting machines 👀➡️ https://demdock.com/4ybyK4L

new: A third-party surveillance company is telling cops that it wants to add facial recognition to Flock footage and ALPR reads to help them "close the gap" in what Flock offers. Company offers racial analysis, gender analysis, behavior analysis www.404media.co/surveillance...

Surveillance Company Tells Cops It Wants to Add Facial Recognition to Flock Cameras

A surveillance company wants to "close the gap" that Flock won't do, by pitching facial recognition on its cameras.

404media.co

I received a survey from Computer Science that was not going to be anonymous. It asked for how we were using AI in teaching and research. First I criticized the research design, then the uncritical adoption pointing out all the problems including that it has beat my love of teaching out of me.

“This is one part of the surveillance and intelligence wing that ICE is building,” EFF’s @cooperq.com told @fedscoop.bsky.social. “It’s a big part of it, but it’s still just one part. ... It’s going to feed in and be indexed alongside all this other surveillance equipment and pipelines.”

ICE awards contested, controversial surveillance contract to Thomson Reuters

Documents shared exclusively with FedScoop offer insight into the initial contract awarded six years ago that acted as a critical building block in DHS’s current surveillance apparatus.

fedscoop.com

today, SCOTUS essentially agreed that willful violations of the 1974 Privacy Act the Social Security Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act, resulting in the transfer of sensitive SSA data on basically every American, is fine...as long as you're handing that data off to ICE

The Ravens’ “flock in” marketing slogan is not doing the same work it used to before the Flock ALPR era. Particularly not on a 295 billboard, on which road there IS a newly installed Flock camera…

Yes, "what a ridiculous use of Flock," but this case also tells us something important: how license plate reader tech is used to police misdemeanors, perpetuating the racially-unjust misdemeanor mill that over-criminalizes low-level offenses (trash disposal) + traps ppl in the crim justice system.

NBC 10 WJAR, Providence New Bedford@nbc10wjar.bsky.social · last mo.

Police reminded residents to secure furniture and other loads properly and to bring unwanted items and other materials to authorized disposal facilities. https://bit.ly/3SQMTWt

New: Texas cops who used Flock to search 80,000 cameras nationwide for a woman who had an abortion used Axon's AI to write up their police report about the incident. The tech "summarized" police discussion over whether a crime had been committed www.404media.co/texas-police...

Texas Police Used AI to Write Report About Using Flock to Search for Woman Who Had Abortion

The incident shows how quickly police departments have come to use AI surveillance tools even in critically sensitive cases.

404media.co

NEW: The Justice Department concluded that a 1998 law requires states who use key safety net programs (TANF + SSI) to report to DHS anytime it identifies an immigrant living unlawfully in the country. It's a reversal/expansion of DOJ's previous analysis. www.politico.com/news/2026/09...

DOJ says states must report all undocumented immigrants — or lose federal funds

politico.com

After an affair with a fellow police officer ended, a Georgia cop used Flock to track her movements—and those of a man whose vehicle often showed up near hers, internal investigation records show. www.wired.com/story/a-geor...

A Georgia Cop Used Flock to Track 2 Other Cops: His Ex and Her Friend

After an affair with a fellow police officer ended, a Georgia cop used Flock to track her movements—and those of a man whose vehicle often showed up near hers, internal investigation records show.

wired.com

Wishing this piece captured religious surveillance as a long-standing—not novel, but presently amplified—state tactic. It likens the present to 1950s E. Europe. But what about the more recent NYPD Muslim Surveillance Program that embedded police informants in mosques + obtained prayer app data?

Churches, libraries and breweries: Inside DHS' covert surveillance operation

DHS allegedly went undercover at community meetings, subpoenaed the financial records of labor unions, and created dossiers on people at a church gathering, according to court filings.

npr.org

Now you can opt out of having your posts shown to non-followers in the Discover feed. We know not everyone wants to go viral. Sometimes you're just posting for your followers. This is one of a few updates we're working on to give you more control over your experience and help you find your people.

My sources inside NIH tell me that grant applications at NIH will now be screened for policy related research and flagged for non-pay. www.forbes.com/sites/brucel...

NIH Reportedly Flagging, Freezing Policy-Focused Grant Applications

Political appointees of U.S. President Donald Trump have reportedly been “flagging and freezing policy-focused grant applications” to the National Institutes of Health.

forbes.com

New: ICE wants the country's voter data ICE is looking for contractors that can help the agency access and handle the country's voter registration and history data. This is to look for what it calls 'fraud', which has been a pretense for mass immigration raids www.404media.co/ice-wants-th...

ICE Wants the Country’s Voter Data

Voting data is public by design, but ICE is looking for a federal contractor to help it handle voter registration and history files to find what it describes as fraud.

404media.co

Rolando Perez Samayoa came to Illinois in 2023 in search of safety. The state's TRUST Act keeps local law enforcement out of federal deportation efforts. But after a DUI arrest last October, ICE descended upon Samayoa and his 17-year-old son.

The County Prosecutors Who Became ICE Informants

Illinois prosecutors shared defendants’ personal data with federal immigration agents without criminal warrants, public disclosure, or legislative oversight.

wired.com

I just got a FOIA back about the EOIR's Office of Chief Administrative Hearing Officer that raises really serious questions about whether that agency is functioning lawfully. My initial review says they're not. There's no functioning CAHO. A thread, because the documents are kind of wild. 🧵

Homeland Security told immigrants that leaving the US would wipe out fines it claims they owe. Now it wants private investigators to find them in their home countries and collect.

DHS Is Hiring Bounty Hunters to Find and Photograph Deported People’s Homes Abroad

Homeland Security told immigrants that leaving the US would wipe out fines it claims they owe. Now it wants private investigators to find them in their home countries and collect.

wired.com

Finally: this may become the largest immigration prison in the Midwest, and it will be located in the very right-leaning Eighth Circuit. I am certain that the administration knows this.

Palantir reports Q2 revenue up 93% YoY to $1.94B, vs. $1.8B est., US commercial revenue up 149%, and raises FY 2026 revenue guidance; PLTR jumps 9%+ after hours (Samantha Subin/CNBC) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

Refusal to wear results in detention + deportation. (Ankle monitors are not a new DHS practice but their expanded use to track TPS recipients likely is.) www.wyso.org/news/2026-07...

DHS summoning some Haitians to check-ins, using ankle monitors to track them

The Department of Homeland Security has notified Haitians who previously had TPS status to report to their office in Blue Ash, Ohio, for a ‘check-in."

wyso.org

One day after a federal judge ordered an ICE detention center opened to state health inspectors, the agency posted new contract terms that would void state oversight at four facilities.

ICE’s New Detention Center Contracts Declare State Laws ‘Shall Not Apply’

One day after a federal judge ordered an ICE detention center opened to state health inspectors, the agency posted new contract terms that would void state oversight at four facilities.

wrd.cm

ICE releases Johns Hopkins researcher detained while boarding flight

Johns Hopkins researcher Fatima Ameaka released from ICE custody

A public health researcher at Johns Hopkins University who was arrested by immigration officials while boarding a domestic flight has been released after spending multiple days in federal custody across...

buff.ly

NEW: “I am fully of the notion that clapping is a First Amendment right that I have. I can exercise that as long as I'm not disrupting, and I still argue that I was not disrupting at all." 404 Media's @mjgault.bsky.social spoke to the person who was arrested for clapping at a data center meeting.

“Clapping Is a First Amendment Right:” An Interview With the Person Arrested for Clapping at a Data Center Meeting

"I have a right to speak. I'm here to speak. I have a right to clap, and if you want me out, you're going to have to drag me out."

404media.co

Data privacy, cooptation, + gov't sharing: longstanding INGO issues. "The World Food Program is re-opening its self-registration app for Gaza aid recipients . . . [2+] months after a cyber-attack exposed sensitive personal information belonging to . . . almost the entire population of the enclave."

WFP restarts Gaza aid registration app, but cyber-attack questions linger

As data collection resumes, partners and donors seek greater accountability and transparency regarding WFP's data security.

thenewhumanitarian.org

NEW: OpenAI’s “rogue” AI agent didn’t just breach Hugging Face — it also hacked multiple third-party accounts and services. It's now clear that the incident was more extensive than the company initially disclosed.

OpenAI’s Rogue AI Agent Hacked More Than Just Hugging Face

In a new disclosure, OpenAI says its agent used exposed logins to gain access to at least four “publicly available services” in its unhinged quest to solve a test.

wired.com

My Haitian friend was just fired from his job. "They said I don't have a legal status now." This is likely happening to hundreds of thousands of people across this country today. Sick.

New from 404 Media: a leaked document shows the surveillance tech at ICE's fingerprints. We obtained the document, called "ICE Wide Analytical Tools" and are publishing it in full here. It includes everything from phone location data, to facial rec, to tracking cars www.404media.co/leaked-docum...

Leaked Document Shows the Surveillance Tech at ICE’s Fingertips

From phone location data, to social media monitoring, to online undercover tools, a document obtained by 404 Media lays out the surveillance tech available across ICE agency wide.

404media.co

On Tuesday, the full Fifth Circuit granted DOJ's request for a "precedential stay" of district court rulings holding that the Due Process Clause requires bond hearings for immigration detainees w/in 90 days of their arrest. Today's "One First" explains why that's a really big (and problematic) deal:

Bonus 239: The Fifth Circuit's "Precedential Stay" in Sosnava Rodriguez

The Fifth Circuit once again did the government's bidding on immigration detention—this time through an unexplained procedural move I've never seen before.

stevevladeck.com