Last week, SoCal’s Monterey Park passed the nation’s first voter-approved permanent citywide data center ban. Communities rejecting data centers, “also targets of ICE raids, are drawing connections between the two,” writes @ehtse.bsky.social in a new op-ed for @coloradoboulevard.bsky.social

In 2021, a 25-year-old US citizen had their DNA collected by CBP at a Chicago airport according to new govt data. They were just one of about 2000 US citizens who had their DNA collected by border agents & shared with the FBI including some as young as 14. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Newly released data shows Customs and Border Protection funneled the DNA of nearly 2,000 US citizens—some as young as 14—into an FBI crime database, raising alarms about oversight and legality. www.wired.com/story/dhs-ha...

When we published our 2024 report “Raiding the Genome,” we suspected that DHS agents might be taking DNA from US citizens. We can now confirm that those suspicions were correct. www.raidingthegenome.org

Thank you @pressley.house.gov for bringing attention to DHS’s abusive DNA collection program in Congress this week. The public deserves transparency about how federal immigration enforcement handles people’s sensitive genetic material.

CBP is looking to expand cell phone hacking capabilities for seized phones at the border. The more CBP has access to our private data, the more they will continue to bypass due process and justify their unlawful deportations www.wired.com/story/cbp-wa...

Border Patrol is buying new tech... "advanced AI" to surveil dense residential areas? Automated surveillance towers? Tech to see through walls?? I talked to @sambiddle.com of @theintercept.com about serious risks amid the agency's increasingly aggressive behavior. theintercept.com/2025/07/23/c...

This week, @wyden.senate.gov cited findings from our recent update to the “Raiding the Genome” report in an oversight letter to DHS and DOJ, raising important questions about the massive DNA collection program led by those agencies. www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-r...

NEW: @wyden.senate.gov is pressing DHS and DOJ to answer questions about the collection of children's DNA, which is being added to a criminal database. @dell.bsky.social has the scoop: www.wired.com/story/dhs-an...

“It’s very clear that the current goal is to continue to grow digital surveillance and use it for whatever this current administration decides,” our Associate @ehtse.bsky.social told @prismreports.org

I was interviewed for this piece:

New from 404 Media: ICE is searching a massive insurance and medical bill database to find deportation targets, according to internal ICE material. The database is all encompassing, contains details on 1.8 billion insurance claims and 58 million medical bills www.404media.co/ice-is-searc...

Last year, we published “Raiding the Genome: How the United States Government Is Abusing Its Immigration Powers to Amass DNA for Future Policing.” Since then, we’ve continued to research DHS’s DNA-collection program. Today, we’re sharing some updates. raidingthegenome.org

Struggling with the work/they're building concentration camps balance.

Had a great chat with @mludwig.bsky.social for this important piece

Gonna try to be nuanced here and speak broadly: There are several reasons to be skeptical of driverless cars, but the biggest one is the fact that they need to record everything in order to function. And then police see them as an extension of the surveillance state and act accordingly

ICE arrested 36 Chinese & Taiwanese immigrants after raiding an LA nightclub. That's them, ziptied on the sidewalk. Yo Asians—if you weren't already outraged and mobilizing on behalf of others, guess what? That "First they came for the..." poem has gotten up to us. www.latimes.com/california/s...

As the Trump administration ramps up immigration enforcement in the nation's interior, it’s trying to issue a $25 million contract for DNA testing. "The mass collection of this data leaves it open for abuse," Associate @ehtse.bsky.social told @bloomberg.com

Quoted in this!

"The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies..."

The privacy expert is @sglabe.bsky.social! She says: “That’s not immigration enforcement. That’s genetic surveillance.”

NEW: The US government has collected DNA samples from 133,000+ migrant children and teenagers and uploaded them into CODIS, a national criminal database originally built for convicted sex offenders and violent criminals, according to documents reviewed by WIRED.

SCOOP: ICE, HSI, and DHS are getting side-door access to the nationwide system of Flock license plate cameras by asking local police to perform lookups for them, new public records show. ICE does *not* have a contract to use this surveillance tool itself. www.404media.co/ice-taps-int...

TX Gov. Abbott has been test running this for the past few years. To understand what this might look like nationwide, we need to look to “Operation Lone Star.” Sharing more below

Three years ago, we released “American Dragnet: Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century.” The report describes the surveillance apparatus that Trump is using to target immigrants, activists and anyone else who challenges his agenda. We’re re-releasing it today with a new foreword.

SCOOP: CFBP just cancelled plans to implement new rules that would have tightened restrictions on what sensitive personal info data brokers are allowed to sell. The rule was proposed after data about US servicemembers was repeatedly exposed in which experts term a national security nightmare.

ICYMI: NIH is building a national health database. "We know that health information is incredibly sensitive. When people go to their healthcare provider, they're giving up that information because they have to in order to receive a service." - Associate @ehtse.bsky.social, to @nbcwashington.com

🚨SCOOP: The aviation industry is now selling airline passengers' private info to Trump's immigration enforcers and the data is fed into a secretive government intelligence operation, according to documents reviewed by The Lever. www.levernews.com/airlines-are...

Texas is building a surveillance apparatus. Many technology acquisitions have been made under Operation Lone Star, with a hefty price tag of $11 billion.

Elon Musk may or may not fulfill his promise to step back from DOGE. But his legacy is already clear: He is assembling a sprawling domestic surveillance system — the likes of which we have never seen in the United States. My latest for NYT Opinion (gift link): www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/o...

Is there a better way to communicate the Overton window? It’s a useful framework, but most folks dont know what it is. And even if you explain it they’re gonna forget what it’s called.

Tech Policy Press fellow Dia Kayyali spoke to six experts to shed some light on what we do and don’t know about how the Trump administration may be using AI for immigration enforcement, and how at-risk travelers, visa holders, and citizens can stay safer.

Folks this isn't complicated. AI regulations are sensibly a part of privacy law. Privacy gives people control over the use of information about them. When a computer deprives people of a job or a loan, that's a privacy harm. www.kqed.org/news/1203751...

“It is hypocrisy in the most rage-inducing form to offer lip service while handing over the names of your own residents to the Trump administration.” - @foxcahn.bsky.social Read more: nysfocus.com/2025/04/23/t...

This week, the NIH announced plans to build a database pulling sensitive health records from federal and commercial sources. I spoke to @nbcwashington.com about the serious privacy concerns this raises.

Sen Van Hollen met with El Salvador's Vice President Félix Ulloa, who told him that the reason they are holding Kilmar Abrego Garcia at CECOT is because the Trump admin is paying them to do so. They also provided no evidence that Abrego Garcia is part of MS-13 or committed any crimes.

USCIS just re-upped its subscription to LexisNexis for $3.4 million—I've previously covered how ICE uses this sprawling database of personal data to locate immigrants in this country theintercept.com/2021/04/02/i...

Over 300 agencies in 38 states have now signed up to participate in the program. We launched a tool to help you keep track who they are and what’s their participation level: themarkup.org/tools/2025/0...

Even accepting the premise that AI produces useful writing (which no one should), using AI in education is like using a forklift at the gym. The weights do not actually need to be moved from place to place. That is not the work. The work is what happens within you.

NEW: Under Operation Lone Star, Texas DPS has quietly built out an expansive surveillance apparatus—one that’s increasingly powered by artificial intelligence. Proposed laws provide few guardrails.🧵 w/ @texasobserver.org + @pulitzercenter.bsky.social www.texasobserver.org/texas-dps-su...

wrote about the common denominator in all the stories of CBP arresting, deporting, and in one case allegedly torturing legal immigrants at airports: mass surveillance www.theverge.com/policy/63284...

Today, we released new research on the impact of Uber’s AI terminations on rideshare drivers & how drivers are fighting back. Futurism got the exclusive.

I’m the Canadian who was detained by Ice for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped

Must read: Mahmoud Khalil speaks out for the first time since his arrest by the Trump administration in an exclusive letter, dictated over the phone to his family, from ICE detention in Louisiana.

If there's one thing that domestic violence research has taught me, it's that abusers set up no-win scenarios. They punish you whether you cooperate with them or whether you push back. The only way out is to strengthen ties with people outside of the relationship who can create new, better options.

New: we've obtained a leaked list of the more than 200 sites, services, apps an ICE surveillance contractor monitors. Bluesky, OnlyFans, many more. Used to track targets. Highly relevant with the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil by ICE. We've published the full list here: www.404media.co/the-200-site...

This is why we must fight for everyone. Whether they’ve been incarcerated or have had contact with the criminal legal system or are merely undocumented. When you accept that some people are deserving of detention and deportation the scope of who is eligible is always under threat of expanding.

With his permission, I'm sharing Dean Treanor's response to Ed Martin's letter: