One way to read the AI/Pentagon news from last night (I covered it but didn't skeet) is that the Department of Defense wants AI to automate weapons and/or spy on Americans and that Anthropic would have the best AI to do that, but OpenAI is at least the second-best so they'll just use that instead.

The irony is stark: a private AI company is holding the line on guardrails against mass surveillance and autonomous weapons—while the federal government pushes to remove them. After revoking Biden's AI safety policies, the Trump administration is now pressuring Anthropic to abandon its own.

Your data will be used against you. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...

Police departments across the U.S are tapping into school district security cameras & sharing the information with DHS. Surveillance equipment in schools was never a project to keep children safe; this tech is used to regulate, control, seperate and intimidate immigrant families.

Scoop: Ring's CEO told staff Search Party is not going to be just for dogs, according to a leaked email I obtained. Said it is "first for finding dogs" before suggesting it would be expanded to be used for crime: www.404media.co/leaked-email...

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed legislation that bans local law enforcement agencies from formally facilitating immigration arrests. At least eight other states have banned or set restrictions on 287(g) partnerships involving ICE and local police offices.

It goes unsaid, but it seems likely that Meta partially feels so comfortable about this launch now is because they think the Federal Trade Commission won’t act against any violations of privacy or civil liberties. Other companies are likely making the same calculations. And they are probably right.

The ACLU (including my team) has filed multiple actions to block subpoenas sent by DHS to identify people speaking out against its abuses. Today's NYT story shows that those cases are the tip of the iceberg: DHS has sent HUNDREDS of subpoenas to tech companies. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...

Today, we sent letters to the FTC and state attorneys general outlining Meta’s troubled history of privacy abuses and the serious risks associated with this plan. We urge enforcers to act immediately to block Meta’s latest rollout of facial recognition technology. epic.org/epic-urges-f...

“Surveillance without limits becomes power without accountability. And power without accountability becomes tyranny.” - Sen. Ed Markey I interviewed @markey.senate.gov for the new Pressing Issues about his new bill to stop ICE and CPB from using face-scanning and other biometric surveillance tech.

Are we living in a surveillance state? Yes. Are we powerless to accept this as a 21st century fact of life? No. We can change the law to radically reshape our digital world. New blog post: www.aclum.org/publications...

"The Massachusetts Department of Correction [] formally partners with ICE to transfer people who have finished their sentences: Since 2007, the state prison system has participated in the federal 287(g) program and [] regularly sends people exiting Massachusetts prisons directly into ICE custody."

What this ad doesn’t show: Ring also rolled out facial recognition for humans. I wrote to them months ago about this. Their answer? They won’t ask for your consent. This definitely isn’t about dogs—it’s about mass surveillance. x.com/Phil_Lewis_/...

Ok, you can stop texting me, I saw the Ring ad. Troubling things about it 🧵: -The long awaited (much warned about) intro of “AI” recognition. It starts w/ searching for a “brown dog” but means the tech is there for lisence plate reading, face recognition, searching for suspects by description, etc

Big Brother isn’t fiction anymore. ICE is building a digital dragnet—facial recognition, plate readers, mass data—tracking all of us. No oversight. No accountability. We must stop ICE now. My op-ed in the Boston Globe.

Alarming new details about ICE facial recognition: -DHS secretly rolled back its rules on the tech (which forbid current uses) -No gallery of potential matches or confidence threshold ratings (standard practices for the tech) -Agents told to prioritize it over fingerprint (which is more reliable)

Orwellian surveillance tools have no place in a democracy. That is why I introduced the ICE Out of Our Faces Act—to stop ICE and CBP from using dangerous and discriminatory facial recognition technologies. This must end now.

The FBI is using facial recognition to identify ICE protestors from YouTube and social media — a chilling escalation of surveillance against the constitutional right to protest. @thomasbrewster.bsky.social reports on what’s at stake for protest and privacy rights:

Two stories that should be read together on government surveillance of and pressure against dissenting speech. This one: wapo.st/4rtfCw8

"Whatever is happening with your data, it is important enough to the most egregiously lawless admin in Am. history that it be collected & consolidated. It is important enough that a federal cowboy kept one hand on his phone even as his other hand reached for his gun." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/o...

“Pointing out that AI is prone to giving ICE bad information is missing the entire point of ICE,” EFF’s @evacide.bsky.social told @RollingStone.com. “They don’t care if the information they have is good.” www.rollingstone.com/culture/cul...

Well, that’ll wreck you. Gift link. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/o...

NEW: The @wired.com Security desk put together a comprehensive guide to filming ICE—with tips for reducing risk at the forefront. No paywall, but please consider subscribing to help find these kinds of resources. And stay safe out there. www.wired.com/story/how-to... www.wired.com/v2/offers/wi...

A Minnesota woman observing ICE agents in her car was cornered on one-way streets. An agent approached, called her by name—citing facial recognition. Days later, her Global Entry and TSA privileges were revoked, with no explanation.

ICE is no longer just carrying out immigration enforcement. With these tools, ICE is rapidly becoming a domestic surveillance agency. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/i...

SCOOP w/ @carolinehaskins.bsky.social: ICE Is Using Palantir’s AI Tools to Sort Through Tips www.wired.com/story/ice-is...

On camera, immigration agents are shooting and killing people in broad daylight. Behind closed doors, ICE is also killing people with chokeholds, medical neglect, inadequate food, and other inhumane conditions. The needless deaths and suffering must end.

While this is promising news, Liam and his father — like hundreds of other families — remain detained in Texas. No child or family belongs in ICE detention.

A Plymouth company that makes iris-scanning software has joined the ranks of technology firms helping federal immigration authorities assemble a vast surveillance apparatus to identify targets for arrest. @bostonglobe.com

“Many people have said that things like this don’t happen in America. But in many ways the violence exhibited by DHS and federal agents mirrors the tactics used by law enforcement in Black and Brown communities for decades.” - @seandoolittle.bsky.social

“.. He cared about people deeply ..,” said Michael Pretti, Alex’s father. “He thought it was terrible, you know, kidnapping children, just grabbing people off the street. He cared about those people, and he knew it was wrong ..” @washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com/national/202...

One of the first things anyone learns about facial recognition is that it is often wrong and that it is biased. And yet ICE is using it all day every day to determine legal status & who to detain. And now we have a high-profile example of it being flat out wrong: www.404media.co/ices-facial-...

“[O]ur decisions about technology are just really human decisions about who are we going to be. Both the laws that regulate the technology and the technology itself. It’s not inevitable that the world is going to be in a particular place and the technology is definitely going to be bad…”

An AI tool used to help ICE identify potential new recruits with law enforcement experience wrongly categorized some potential new officers, sources say. nbcnews.to/49IOKRB

Van Hollen: We are here to say not one more dime for Donald Trump's ICE operations

After Minneapolis, now the ICE shooting on Christmas Eve in Maryland is getting some scrutiny from local police: “…county police confirmed The Banner’s reporting that the second person injured in the encounter was already in ICE custody, in one of the agency’s vehicles, when he was hurt.”

Privacy rights are civil rights. Privacy rights are immigrant rights. Privacy rights are protester rights. Privacy rights are LGBTQ rights. Privacy rights are religious rights. Privacy rights are democratic rights. Privacy rights are human rights. Privacy rights are fundamental rights.

“.. In the last four months alone, immigration officers have fired on at least nine people in five states and Washington, D.C. All of the individuals targeted in those shootings were, like the woman killed on Wednesday, fired on while in their vehicles.” @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/u...

New: we've obtained material explaining how an ICE surveillance system, called Webloc, works. Draw shape on a map, see all phones available there, follow them home. All without warrant “This is a very dangerous tool in the hands of an out-of-control agency.” www.404media.co/inside-ices-...

Thousands of people in Minneapolis gathered for a candlelight vigil to mourn and protest the killing of Renee Nicole Good, who was shot and killed by an ICE officer in the city as she appeared to try to drive away in her vehicle during a raid.

Renee Nicole Good should be alive today. Public safety does not come from ICE agents terrorizing our communities.

@chrislhayes.bsky.social: “A 37-year-old American citizen, the mother of a young child is dead tonight. She was shot in the face by an agent of the federal government, and that government has spent the day telling despicable lies about her.”

This week’s podcast guest is Olivier Sylvain, a professor of law at Fordham Law School and a senior policy research fellow at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. He's the author of "Why Trump’s AI EO Will be DOA in Court," a perspective published on Tech Policy Press.

Cambridge City Council will be CANCELLING its contract with mass surveillance company FLOCK – other municipalities should do the same. TAKE ACTION: mobilize.aclum.org/a/email-your...

Next up, Gideon Epstein from the ACLU of Mass, who has a presentation available at: cambridgema.iqm2.com/Citizens/Det...

Read this: www.wgbh.org/news/local/2...

Y'all, tmrw is a BIG DAY for civil rights and tech. @markey.senate.gov, @repyvetteclarke.bsky.social, @jayapal.house.gov, @pressley.house.gov, & @repsummerlee.bsky.social are introducing the AI Civil Rights Act: the new gold standard AI bill endorsed by 85+ civil society orgs. Pull up a chair. 1/n

The GOP is trying to sneak legislation into a bigger bill that would preempt state laws around the regulation of AI, and create a national environment with very little regulation of the technology. punchbowl.news/article/tech...

New from me: Meta’s advertising system engages in race and gender segregation. A new lawsuit from @lawyerscomm.bsky.social provides a roadmap for new forms of accountability using state consumer protection laws prohibiting unfair or deceptive trade practices to challenge algorithmic discrimination.

Facial recognition errors can have life-altering consequences. In @techpolicypress.bsky.social, CDT’s @jakelaperruque.bsky.social warns that ICE’s new approach — treating AI matches as definitive IDs — violates currently-understood DHS policy and endangers civil liberties.